> 





Personal Reminiscences 



1840-1890 

INCLUDING SOME NOT HITHERTO PUBLISHED OF 
LINCOLN AND THE WAR 



BY 

L. E. CHITTENDEN 

AUTHOR OF "RECOLLECTIONS OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN AND HIS 
ADMINISTRATION. " 



& 









NEW YORK 
RICHMOND, CROSCUP & CO. 

1893 









Copyright, 1893, by 
RICHMOND, CROSCUP & CO. 

[All Rights Reserved.] 



To 
EDWARD J. PHELPS, 

LAWYER, STATESMAN, AND FELLOW-VERMONTER, 

AS A 

MEMORIAL OF A FRIENDSHIP 

WHICH BEGAN WHEN WE CAME TO THE BAR, 

WHICH HAS SURVIVED A BUSINESS COPARTNERSHIP 

AND MANY "TRIALS," 

WHICH GROWS CLOSER WITH THE PASSING YEARS, AND 

PROMISES TO BE INHERITED BY OUR CHILDREN, 

1F Dedicate tbis IDoIume. 

THE AUTHOR. 



PREFACE. 



If the opinion of a large body of correspondents is 
reliable, the reading-public have derived some pleas- 
ure from my " Recollections of President Lincoln and 
his Administration." The chief attraction of that 
book must lie in its great central figure. If, as these 
correspondents claim, it has other merits, I think 
they are comprised in the fact that the subjects are 
personal, and each is treated separately in a chapter 
of no great length. It was also my purpose to describe 
persons and events without exaggeration or prejudice, 
just as they appeared to me at the time. 

The present volume is written in the same spirit 
and on the same plan. While it lacks the great cen- 
tral attraction of the " Recollections," I sincerely hope 
that each subject will be found to possess an interest 
or to point a moral which will justify its publication. 

I have an impression that truth is just as attrac- 
tive in a book as it is in the ordinary transactions of 
life. If there is any false statement of fact herein, 
it has escaped my notice and has been unintentionally 
made. No chronological or other order of subjects 
has been attempted. Observations upon birds follow 



VI PREFACE. 

remarks upon the financial policy of Secretary Chase 
without any infringement of my design. Each 
chapter except the " Study" is substantially complete 
in itself, and must stand or fall upon its own merits. 
I offer no excuses, I do not attempt to forestall criti- 
cism. If any chapter is unworthy of a place in the 
literature of the time, I have simply made an error 
of judgment and must bear the penalty. 

I shall feel greatly disappointed if there is a sen- 
tence in it which shall pain any reader or lead him 
to wish that the volume had not been written. It is 
more local than I could wish, but that is perhaps un- 
avoidable. 

The " Study" which closes the book is not within 
its original scope. It is an attempt to show what 
the qualities were which made Mr. Lincoln great — 
which as a political leader, an orator, a writer of Eng- 
lish prose, a statesman, a military strategist, a friend 
and benefactor of humanity, so elevated and made 
him the foremost man of his time. If I have suc- 
ceeded only partially, I have shown to my young 
countrymen how they may emulate his noble pur- 
poses and perpetuate his fame, that — 

" While the races of mankind endure, 
So shall his great example stand 
Colossal, glorious, seen in every land 
To keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure." 

L. E. Chittenden. 

New York, Feb.'l, 1893. 



ooisrTEisrTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. — The Earliest Free Soil Organization — The 

Origin of the Republican Party, ... 1 
II.— The Van Burens— The New York Barn- 
Burners, 11 

III. — The Early Bench and Bar of Vermont, . 18 

IV. — A Lesson in Banking, 26 

V. — The Third House Journal — How We Re- 
formed Legislation in 1850, . . . .33 
VI. — Wooden Side Judges of the County Courts, 43 
VII. — The Vermont Flood wood or Right Arm of 

her Defence, 47 

VIII. — A Grateful Client, 53 

IX. —Hypnotism— Spiritual and Other Isms, . . 70 
X. — " The Beautiful American Nun, " . .79 
XL —Secretary Chase and his Financial Policy, . 90 
XII.— Some Notes about Birds— A Lesson in Engi- 
neering, 101 

XIII. — Judge Lynch— An Incident of Early Pacific 

Railroad Travel, 114 

XIV.— Judge Lynch, Continued— An Experience in 

a Western Mining -Camp, .... 126 
XV. — Adirondack Days— Untried Companions in the 

Wilderness— Their Perils and Experiences, 139 
XVI. — The Story of Mitchell Sabattis, . . .151 
XVII. —The Adirondack Region— A Warning to the 

Destroyer— A Plea for the Perishing, . 159 



Vlll 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER 

XVIII. 

XIX. 

XX. 

XXI. 

XXII. 

XXIII. 

XXIV. 

XXV. 

XXVI. 

XXVII. 

XXVIII. 



XXIX.— 



XXX 
XXXI 

XXXII. 
XXXIII. 



—November Days on Lake Champlain— The 
Story of Hiram Bramble, . 

— Duck -Shooting in East Creek, 

— A Cold Morning on Bullwagga Bay, 

— Quacks and Quackery, . 

— Essex Junction, .... 

— The Humor and Mischief of the Junior Bar 
— Our Annual Bar Festival, 

— Owls, Falcons, and Eagles, 

— Novel Experiences in Official Life, 

—The Death of Lincoln, . 

— Savannah in Winter and in War, 

—Teaching School on Hog Island — Its Ad 
vantages and pleasant memories, 
The Book Chase— Non-Existence of Unique 
Copies — A Hunt for "Sanders' Indian 
Wars" and "The Contrast," the First 
American Play — Stolen Engravings and 
Drawings, 

— Some Men whom I knew in Washington 
during the Civil War, .... 

— Law as a Progressive Science — Is Pro- 
gress Always an Advance? — Circumstan- 
tial Evidence— The Boorn Case, 

—Abraham Lincoln : A Study — His Origin 
and Early Life, 



XXXIV.- 



-Abraham Lincoln (Continued) : His Fail- 
ures—The Farm Laborer ; the Flat- Boat- 
man ; the Fighter ; the Merchant ; the 
Surveyor, 

-Abraham Lincoln (Continued) : His Suc- 
cesses — The Lawyer ; the Advocate ; the 
Popular Man, 



XXXV. —Abraham Lincoln (Continued) : The Ora- 
tor ; the Candidate ; the Man of the 
People, 



169 
175 
182 
186 
198 

205 

221 
228 
236" 
246 

269 



279 



303 



328 



340 



349 



356 



367 



CONTENTS. ix 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXXVI.— Abraham Lincoln (Continued) : His Elec- 
tion ; his Preparation and his Promises, 379 

XXXVII.— Abraham Lincoln (Continued) : The Diplo- 
matist ; the Military Strategist ; the 
Master of English Prose ; the Statesman ; 
the Great President, .... 394 

XXXVIII. — Abraham Lincoln (Continued) : The Man 

full of Faith and Power, . . . 409 



PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Earliest Free Soil Organization — The 
Origin of the Republican Party. 

It is April, 1848. The Mexican War is ended. 
Shall the territory which we made the war to acquire 
— vast enough in itself for a republic — remain free, 
or shall it be surrendered to the domination of the 
slave power? This had been the burning question. 
We had hoped it was settled by the Wilmot Proviso, 
which declared that neither slavery nor involuntary 
servitude, except for crime, should ever exist there. 
We were now to learn that, touching the peculiar in- 
stitution, nothing was to be regarded as settled, un- 
less it was settled in the Southern waj*. The slave 
power had secured control of the Democratic party. 
In the name of that party it had hinted at a pro- 
gramme which involved the abrogation of the Wil- 
mot Proviso, and between its lines could be read 
faint indications of measures which did not mature 
until six years later. Of these, " Squatter Sover- 
eignty" was the most obvious. This doctrine de- 
clared that the people ought to settle the status of a 
State as between freedom and slavery, after it was 
admitted into the Federal Union. But "Squatter 
1 



2 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

Sovereignty " involved the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise of 1820, which declared that slavery 
should not exist north of latitude 36° 30'; for how 
could the people decide in favor of slavery if it were 
already excluded by an irrepealable law? There 
were also occasional suggestions from the South of a 
stringent law for the capture and return of fugitives 
from slavery, and of the principles established after- 
ward in the Dred Scott case, as additional planks in 
the Democratic platform. 

It was not a favorable time for the slave power to 
assert new claims, especially in Vermont. While 
the Liberty party had never attained great numer- 
ical strength there, and its leaders were generally 
regarded as dangerous extremists, there were many 
good Democrats as well as Whigs who could not but 
respect such men as William Lloyd Garrison, James 
G. Birney, and Gerritt Smith, however much they 
might differ from them as to the means by which 
their purposes were to be accomplished. Their dif- 
ferences were of degree rather than principle. The 
New Englanders generally would have said : " Let 
slavery be content with its present possessions — we 
will not concern ourselves with it where it has been 
established by law. But freedom is the natural right 
and normal condition of the human race. Not one 
square inch of territory, now free, shall ever be 
darkened by the pall of slavery with our consent, nor 
without overcoming all the lawful resistance we can 
interpose." The Abolitionists, however, insisted that 
slavery had no rights and that it ought to be every- 
where abolished. 

In fact, slavery itself was cordially detested by the 
people of the Green Mountains They inherited their 



THE FIRST FREE SOIL PARTY. 3 

love of freedom from their ancestors. Like Abraham 
Lincoln in his younger days, the thought of slavery 
made them uncomfortable. There had been a very 
warm spot in their hearts for the hunted fugitive 
ever since Revolutionary days, when Capt. Ebenezer 
Allen, "conscientious that it is not right in the sight 
of God to keep slaves," gave to Dinah Mattis and her 
infant, slaves captured from the enem} r , their deed 
of emancipation; and Judge Harrington decided 
against the title of the slave-master, because he 
could not show a deed from the original proprietor — 
Almighty God ! From the day when the name of 
the State was first adopted, no slave had been taken 
away from Vermont against his will. The fugitive 
who set foot upon her soil was from that moment 
safe if he was not free. Her North and South roads 
were underground railroads, and there were feAv 
houses upon them where the escaped slave was not 
provided with rest, food, and clothing, and assisted 
on his way. There were Democrats who would send 
their teams to carry the fugitives northward, while 
they themselves walked to a convention to shout 
for Douglas, and resolve that slavery must not be 
interfered with in the States where it existed by 
law. 

Just about this time the Democratic party of the 
North gave way, and intimated its willingness to 
make the concessions which the Southern wing of 
the party began openly to demand. Chief among 
these was the rejection of the Wilmot Proviso, and ac^ 
ceptance of the doctrine of "Squatter Sovereignty." 
The proximity of Missouri and Arkansas would enable 
their temporary emigrants to decide that slavery 
should be lawful in Kansas and Nebraska ; and the 



4 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

obstructions being removed from California and New- 
Mexico, any one with half an eye could see that the 
Missouri Compromise would be swept away, and 
the whole region west of the " Father of the Waters " 
would become slave territory. 

To such concessions there were many Northern 
Democrats who objected, and some who answered 
" No ! Never ! " Just then the Democratic State Con- 
vention was called to meet at Montpelier, and the 
leading Democratic newspaper, published at the 
State capital, announced that the convention would 
incorporate the new doctrines into the Democratic 
platform. The paper spoke as one having authority, 
declaring that the Wilmot Proviso was a violation of 
the Federal Constitution. 

I was one of the recalcitrant Democrats and a dele- 
gate from Burlington to that convention. On the 
day it met I should complete my twenty-fourth year. 
I had been practising at the bar somewhat over three 
years and was (in my own opinion) a much greater 
constitutional lawyer than I have at any time since 
been considered by myself or other competent judges. 
I felt perfectly qualified to discuss the constitu- 
tional question involved in the Proviso. The more 
I examined the authorities the clearer the question 
seemed, until I arrived at the condition of mind 
where I regarded this new demand as a piece of cool 
impudence on the part of the pro-slavery Democracy. 

I found that other delegates to the convention 
were of the same temper. One of them was Charles 
D. Kasson, a lawyer of Burlington and an elder 
brother of John A. Kasson, afterward of Iowa. The 
elder Kasson was as solid, reliable, and generous a 
citizen and friend as ever existed. He was removed 



THE FIRST FREE SOIL PARTY. 5 

by death only a few years later, and his loss was felt 
not only Iw the circle of his personal friends, but by 
the community. 

With Kasson I promptly decided that if the con- 
vention committed itself in favor of Squatter Sover- 
eignty and against the Wilmot Proviso, we would 
leave it and raise the standard of Free Soil. We 
corresponded with other delegates and invited them 
to join us in the revolt. Man}' of the younger Dem- 
ocrats were, like ourselves, indignant at the new 
dictation. But when it came to the question of leav- 
ing the party they (nearly) " all with one consent be- 
gan to make excuse." We found only four who 
where willing to unite in heroic measures. These 
were Edward D. Barber, of Middlebury, Charles I. 
Walker and Charles K. Field, of Windham, and A. 
J. Rowell, of Orleans County. Barber was a great- 
hearted man, full of fun and frolic, but with a soul 
stirred to its depths by any story of cruelty or op- 
pression. He was a born anti-slavery man. Walker 
was an able lawyer, who shortly after removed to 
Detroit, where he soon became the leader of the bar. 
Field was a lawyer of great natural ability, full of a 
grim humor and with a tongue as sharp and caustic 
as that of John Randolph. Rowell was like Zac- 
cheus, little of stature, but great in push and energy. 
The qualities of the sixth party to the agreement 
were as may hereafter appear. 

The six members referred to had a conference in 
Montpelier the evening before the convention. We 
agreed to go into the convention after we had noti- 
fied the State Committee of our purpose to withdraw 
if the design of adding the new planks to the plat- 
form were persisted in. Possibly because I was the 



6 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

youngest, to me was assigned the duty of delivering 
our valedictory and leading the revolt. 

We called upon the State Committee in the morn- 
ing and were treated with contempt. At ten o'clock 
the convention was called to order. From the tem- 
porary and permanent organization and the Commit- 
tee on Resolutions we were, as we had anticipated, 
excluded. The last-named committee met in a cor- 
ner of the hall ; the resolutions which had been pre- 
pared by authority were immediately reported to the 
convention. They were anti-Proviso and pro-Squat- 
ter Sovereignty in their most objectionable form. 

I arose to make my first, my last, and my only 
speech in a Democratic convention. I began with 
the statement that the resolutions made the Demo- 
cratic party of Vermont say that our free republic 
had not the power to maintain its own freedom ; that 
if it was a violation of the Constitution to preserve 
the freedom of the territory acquired from Mexico, it 
was an equal violation of that instrument to exclude 
slaveiy from the northwest territory. That I would 
not venture to question the conclusions of the great 
constitutional lawyers of the Committee on Resolu- 
tions, but I would read a section or two from a law 
book of some authority which was diametrically op- 
posed to the conclusions of the committee. The book 
was called Kent's Commentaries, was written by a 
lawyer of some authority in his day, and I read from 
it, not to resist the resolutions, but to show in what 
wholesale and ignorant blunders the committee had 
detected John Marshall, Story, and James Kent. I 
then read an extract from a letter of Mr. Madison to 
another member of the convention that framed the 
Constitution, thereby showing that the makers of 



THE FIRST FREE SOIL PARTY. 7 

that instrument did not know what they were about, 
for they supposed that the absolute control of the 
territories had been vested in Congress. This satire 
produced an uneasy feeling in the convention. Throw- 
ing it aside, I now, with all the earnestness of which 
I was master, exclaimed, " You who assert the power 
of leadership are making it impossible for a Ver- 
monter who respects himself to remain in the Dem- 
ocratic party. Your resolutions prostitute that party 
to the service of the slave power. Our ancestors 
fought two states and a kingdom, through cold and 
poverty and hunger, for almost twenty years, to se- 
cure a place where Vermont was the equal of any 
State in the Federal Union. Your resolutions are un- 
worthy of their descendants. Pass them, and with 
my associates I leave this hall for the time being 
and the Democratic party forever, unless it is re- 
deemed from its present vassalage and restored to 
its former principles and dignity." 

When I took my seat there was for some moments 
an oppressive silence, followed at last by what ap- 
peared to be a burst of genuine applause. 

But an ancient Democrat, whose mind was imper- 
vious to argument, then arose and observed that as 
" the boy had spoke his piece, we might as well pro- 
ceed to the business of the convention." No one else 
spoke. There was a subdued affirmative vote and a 
sharp " No " from the six to the resolutions. We 
did not challenge the vote, the chairman declared the 
resolutions carried, and the opposition party of six 
walked out of the convention. There was an effort 
to raise a hiss. It failed, and we took our departure 
in a profound and unbroken silence. 

We crossed the street to the Pavilion Hotel, en- 



8 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

tered the room we had occupied, and closed the door. 
Barber was requested to take the chair and Rowell 
to act as secretaiy. Field arose, sa} T ing that he had 
a motion to make which he had committed to writ- 
ing. It was brief but comprehensive. "I move, "he 
read, " that we organize a new party to be called the 
' Free Soil Party ; ' that its platform shall be un- ■ 
compromising resistance to the extension of slavery 
or the slave power ; that we select a State Committee 
of five persons ; that we establish a weekly newspaper 
to be published in Burlington and called the Free 
Soil Courier; that we assess ourselves for money 
enough to pay for publishing four numbers ; that we 
name its editors ; that the first number be issued as 
early as it can be prepared, and that it contain our 
address to the people of Vermont." 

There was no discussion, for the motion was drawn 
after our consultation of the previous evening. It 
was passed at once nem. con., and the first Free Soil 
party formed in this republic, and out of the loins 
of which came the most effective political organiza- 
tion witnessed by the nineteenth century — the grand 
old Republican party — was organized. 

Field was then appointed to write the address. 
Edward A. Stansbury, an active, young anti-slavery 
Whig, was in the hotel. He was sent for, came, 
and, after our action was explained, agreed to join 
us and to become the temporary editor of the Cour- 
ier. "We then subscribed fifty dollars each to the 
publication fund, and adjourned in time for an early 
dinner. Before the arrival of the daily stage for 
Burlington (for Vermont had no railroads then) 
Field had completed his address to the people. It 
was read, amended, and adopted. I was named as 



THE FIRST FREE SOIL PARTY. 9 

chairman and Stansbnry as a member of the State 
Committee, and we were authorized to name the 
three remaining members — two from the old Whig 
and one from the Democratic party. 

As I write after the lapse of forty-five years, the 
scenes of that day come back to me with vivid dis- 
. tinctness. Except myself all the actors have gone 
over to the great majority. For a few moments I 
call back Barber, his round, moon-like face beaming 
with delight as he croons the death-song of the Dem- 
ocratic party which he is composing. Stansbury, 
his sharp eyes sparkling through his gold-rimmed 
spectacles, is hunting for some one whom he may 
" pitch into, " always preferring a " Hunker. " Rowell, 
expert with the pen, is making a list of our probable 
recruits to whom the Courier is to be sent. Field, 
saturnine and solemn, declares that, as he contem- 
plates the wreck of the Democracy, he for the first 
time understands the sensations of Marius surrounded 
by the ruins of Carthage. He would prefer a nice, 
fresh ruin with an agreeable odor, he declares, for 
those of the Democracy have a stale and graveyard 
kind of smell; while Walker recommends to Henry 
Stevens, of Barnet, that as those ruins are already 
desiccated, he should gather them up and deposit 
them in his receptacle for things lost upon earth. 
Even now there is a sensation of fun about the whole 
affair, for we were all then enjoying life in the 
freshness and vigor of that youth which, alas ! never 
returns. 

We never paid our subscriptions to the Free Soil 
Courier. On the first day of August Stansbury 
brought out the first number. It was so racy that 
the old hand-press upon which it was printed was 



10 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

kept running until it was wanted for the second 
number. Subscriptions for the twelve numbers to 
be issued before the November elections came in so 
rapidly that the enterprise was a paying one from 
the start. 

I am aware that it is the prevailing opinion that 
there were no organizations of the Free Soil party 
in the New England States until after the Buffalo 
convention, held in August, 1848. Even Henry 
Wilson, who is usually accurate, fell into that error. 
Our organization had been in active operation for 
six weeks before the Buffalo convention was called. 



CHAPTER II. 

The Van Burens — The New York Barn- 
Burners. 

In June, 1848, the feud between the Barn-Burners 
and the Hunkers of New York was at fever heat. 
The Evening Post was the organ, "Prince" John 
Van Buren the recognized leader of the Barn-Burners. 
One of the first and most encouraging evidences that 
our movement begun at Montpelier was attracting 
attention was a letter from William C. Bryant, then 
chief editor of the Evening Post, urging us to 
persevere and either nominate a State ticket or adopt 
the candidates of the Liberty party. We had already 
determined to adopt those candidates, for they were 
men of worth and ability. 

During the last week in June I received a letter 
from John Van Buren urging me to come to Albany 
on the 1st of July. On reaching that city, I was, 
on the morning of July 2d, introduced to a party 
of gentlemen, some of whom I think have been mem- 
bers of about every political party which has since 
been formed. I cannot now recall the names of all 
of them. "Prince" John Van Buren was by com- 
mon consent the leader. I remember also N. S. Ben- 
ton, at one time Secretary of State, Judge James, of 
Ogdensburgh, and Cassidy, afterward editor of the 
Albany Atlas, at first a Free Soil sheet, but after- 
ward transferred with its editor to the Argus, an 

11 



12 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

ultra-Hunker journal. There too I first met Will- 
iam Curtis Noyes, and formed a friendship inter- 
rupted only by his death. He appeared to be a 
genuine lover of freedom, a sharp fighter, and a de- 
termined, but fair and honorable opponent of the 
slave power. Among the party there was also an- 
other young lawyer from New York City. He was 
said to be an immense card — a man of extraordinary 
brilliancy and adroitness. He had just written 
some excoriation of the Hunkers which had given 
him great eclat. His name was Samuel J. Tilclen. 
He was understood to breathe no atmosphere that was 
not saturated with hatred of the Hunker Democracy. 

It was very apparent at the first meeting that the 
object of these gentlemen was to defeat General 
Cass rather than to restrict slavery. Cass had re- 
ceived the Democratic nomination for the Presidency 
and was supported by the Hunker wing of the New 
York Democracy. The Barn-Burners had bolted his 
nomination, and had decided to hold another conven- 
tion and nominate ex-President Van Buren on a 
Free Soil platform. The purpose of the meeting at 
Albany was to frame the call and fix the time for 
that convention, and the grave question for decision 
was whether the call should be made broad enough 
to invite such men as Charles Sumner and Charles 
Francis Adams, who had never been either Democrats 
or Abolitionists. 

The question seemed to be one of policy. If these 
men were excluded, the convention would be held by 
the Barn-Burners only. This party had little strength 
outside the State of New York — not enough, it was 
feared, to defeat General Cass if it was exerted for a 
third candidate. On the other hand, the Barn-Burners 



THE VAN BURENS. 13 

were loyal to the Constitution and would not affil- 
iate with men who believed in disregarding its pro- 
visions as the Abolitionists were quite prepared to 
do. Tilden seemed to be the leader of those who 
favored a restricted call, Mr. Noyes of the Liberals, 
while John Van Buren had not yet declared himself 
either way. 

For two da}*s the debate went on. Toward even- 
ing it became acrimonious, but the inimitable humor 
of Prince John and the excellent dinners he gave us 
at a private residence on Capitol Hill restored har- 
mony. We had reached cigars at the dinner on the 
3d of July, when, as if the idea had just struck 
him, the Prince exclaimed : " Let us adjourn this de- 
bate and go to the theatre ! To-morrow morning we 
will drive down to Lindenwald and spend the Fourth 
with father. He shall give us a good dinner and 
help us to a settlement of this question." 

The proposal met with universal favor. I had all 
the curiosity of youth for a near view of the ex- 
President, which I ma}* here say was the more 
interesting since it was the only one I ever had. I 
did not feel much interest in the question, for its de- 
cision either way would not modify our action. But 
there were others who thought that it was prudent, 
in a matter of so much importance, to avail them- 
selves of the wisdom and experience of the sage of 
Kinderhook. 

Early the next morning Prince John called at my 
hotel, himself driving a pair of horses and a light 
Concord wagon. He insisted that I should carry 
my portmanteau, as we might pass the night else- 
where than in Albany. 

That drive was as delightful as the subsequent 



14 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

visit, and both were memorable. The road, along 
which we bowled at a speed of nearly ten miles an 
hour, was shaded almost the entire distance from the 
rays of the summer sun, and so lively and amusing 
was my companion that I was unconscious of the 
lapse of time, nor can I now tell the length of the 
drive. His mind seemed preoccupied by General 
Cass. I learned how sharp hits were made in public 
speeches, for he was to make an address somewhere 
about General Cass, and for a part of the drive he 
was employed in casting and recasting the figures of 
speech to be used in the delineation of his person and 
character. Brilliant as he was, I discovered that the 
best of his apparently impromptu expressions were 
the fruit of very careful preparation. 

I was disappointed in the linden trees that gave 
their name to the country home of the venerable ex- 
President. We would have called them in Vermont 
rather inferior bass-woods. But with the hearty 
welcome which shone from the sunny face of the 
active, sprightly man who met us at his gate and 
threw his arms around the neck of his stalwart son, 
I was charmed and delighted. How plain of speech 
are the eye and the arm ! There was all the fervor 
of boyhood in the meeting of this distinguished son 
with an honored father. It told of a mutual love, 
warm, cheering, and unbroken, from the cradle of 
the one to the waiting tomb of the other. Some 
might have deemed them careless of each other's 
sensibilities. All that day they hurled their shafts 
of wit at each other, but the closest observer could 
discover no instant in which the Attorney -General 
of New York forgot the respect due to his honored 
father and the ex-President of the United States. 



THE VAN BURENS. 15 

In addition to his guests from Albany, several of 
his neighbors called upon Mr. Van Buren, and the 
day passed in political and general conversation in 
his pleasant grounds. I had an experience of that 
marvellous influence which our host was reported to 
exercise over those with whom he came in contact. 
His first inquiry of me was concerning a Vermonter 
for whom I had a high esteem. 

" William C. Bradley and I entered Congress to- 
gether," he said, "and Mr. Bradley but for his deaf- 
ness would have been the more successful man. He 
had no superior intellectually, and was the peer of 
any member of either House." 

He spoke of Judges Phelps and Collamer and also 
of Judge Chipman in terms so complimentary that I 
was proud of Vermont and charmed with Mr. Van 
Buren. Although our host was probably informed 
of the occasion of our visit, the day passed without 
any reference to it. After a delightful dinner the 
cloth was removed, and then Prince John made a 
brief but entirely fair statement of the point of dif- 
ference. William Curtis Noyes, who was a master 
of the art of concise statement, gave the reasons on 
one side, and Mr. Tilden on the other. There was a 
very mischievous twinkle in the eyes of the ex-Pres- 
ident as he said : 

" I am delighted with your success, Mr. Tilden. I 
was not aware before that the Barn-Burners were so 
strong." , 

"I have said nothing about our strength, Mr. Van 
Buren ! " replied Mr. Tilden. 

"True; you have only implied it," answered our 
host. " You must be very strong if you are already 
picking and choosing from the recruits who offer 



16 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

themselves for enlistment. I had supposed that we 
wanted every man who was opposed to the extension 
of slavery. Would it not be well first of all to defeat 
General Cass, and show the pro-slavery party that 
they shall not invade free soil? To that end, is not 
the vote of Gerritt Smith just as weighty as that of 
Judge Martin Grover? " 

A brief silence followed, broken at length by Mr. 
Tilden. 

" I had half converted myself, " he said. " Mr. Van 
Buren is to be our candidate. His opinion is obvi- 
ous. Unless some gentleman wishes to discuss the 
subject farther, I move the adoption of the call for a 
national Free Soil Convention presented by Mr. 
Noyes, and that the convention be held at Buffalo on 
the 9th day of August. " 

There were several seconds, and the motion was 
unanimously adopted. Our mission was ended. Sub- 
sequent events are now historical. The convention 
was held, Mr. Van Buren was nominated and after 
a sharp campaign General Cass was defeated and 
General Taylor elected. 

I recall one of the incidents of our dinner at Lin- 
denwald which serves to illustrate the unconventional 
relations which existed between the ex-President and 
his son. The plate set before me for one of the 
courses was most exquisitely decorated, and with the 
gaucherie of an inexperienced curiosity I could not 
resist the temptation to turn it over and look for the 
maker's mark. 

" Is not that a beautiful piece of china? " inquired 
the Prince. " It has a history. It belongs to a din- 
ner set made at Sevres for the King of Italy before 
the fall of Napoleon. I discovered it in Paris, and 



THE VAN BURENS. 17 

although it was expensive, I purchased it and pre- 
sented it to my father. Ought he not to be grateful 
for such a magnificent present? " 

"Indeed I am grateful," said the ex-President, 
" perhaps more grateful for this than for another pres- 
ent you made me about the same time." 

"Another present! What was it? I do not re- 
member it," said his son. 

" It was a bill of exchange for acceptance for more 
than the cost of the china ! " replied the elder. 

" Yes ! yes ! " said the Prince. " I intended that the 
entire transaction should represent a beautiful case 
of filial and paternal affection. I presented you with 
the china — that was filial. You paid for it — that 
was paternal. Could anything be more complete? " 

We slept at Linden wald. The next morning I 
breakfasted with the ex-President and his son. Our 
wagon was at the gate. Holding my hand in his, 
the venerable host said kindly : " Young man, you 
have chosen a good part. Persevere to the end, 
which you may see, but I shall not. The recent ag- 
gressions of the slave power may destroy the old 
parties, but they will perpetuate the republic. You 
have enlisted under the banner of Free Soil.* Carry 
it forward to victory. The contest may be long. I 
foresee that it will not be ended by the present cam- 
paign. Slavery cannot long exist under restrictions. 
It must expand or perish. The great Northwest, by 
the consent of the South, has been consecrated to 
Freedom. Her rights must be maintained at any 
cost. To your generation is committed the high 
duty of maintaining them and of making our be- 
loved country, permanently and truly, 'The land of 
the free and the home of the brave. ' ' 
2 



CHAPTER III. 
The Early Bench and Bar of Vermont. 

It is one of the prerogatives of age to believe that 
the world is progressing backward. Without assert- 
ing this privilege I will set down, from old note- 
books and from memory, some incidents of the early 
bench and bar of Vermont, and leave my readers to 
make their application. 

My early professional life was passed before such 
judges as Samuel Prentiss, of the Circuit Court of 
the United States for the District of Vermont, a court 
ocasionally dignified by the presence on the bench 
of Samuel Nelson, of the Supreme Court of the 
United States. Some of the judges who then served 
the State for salaries of seven hundred and fifty dol- 
lars per year were Stephen Royce, Charles K. Will- 
iams, Samuel S. Phelps, Jacob Collamer, Milo L. 
Bennett,* and Isaac F. Redfield. Later came the two 
Pierponts, Robert and John. There was not one of 
these who would not have honored a seat on the 
bench of the highest court in the land. And they 
had other than judicial qualifications. In the opinion 
of Mr. Webster, Samuel S. Phelps was the best 
lawyer in the Senate of the United States of his 
time. " Jack" Pierpont, as we affectionately called 
him, was not only a lawyer and a judge, but he knew 
and loved every game-bird and was the best wing 

shot in a close cover the State ever produced. I can- 

18 



EARLY BENCH AND BAR OF VERMONT. 19 

not help thinking sometimes that this old race of law- 
yers no longer exists. 

Lawyers of the present day will put on a look of 
wise incredulity when they read the statement which 
I here record. When I left the State and its bar in 
1861 1 had never heard so much as a whisper against 
the impartiality or integrity of a Vermont judge. 
At that time we should have looked upon a lawyer 
as an unworthy brother if he had not implicit con- 
fidence in the bench. We used to find fault with 
their decisions ; we availed ourselves of our privileges 
as defined by Judge Grover, of the New York Supreme 
Court. We could and did appeal from the deci- 
sions, or go down to the hotel and complain about 
the court, and sometimes we did both. But no law- 
yer suspected or intimated that the decisions were 
influenced by fear, favor, or affection, or that they 
did not comprise the impartial judgment of the 
court upon the facts and law. I might here refer to 
some of the reflex influences of such judges upon the 
bar, but I will merely say that they made the first 
twenty years of my practice a time to look back upon 
as the most delightful of a long professional life. 

There were some of the earlier Vermont judges of 
whom my knowledge was legendary. One of these 
was Elias Ke} T es, a singular compound of law, good 
sense, and sarcasm. That eminent scholar and 
statesman, George P. Marsh, gave me the following 
account of one of Judge Keyes' sentences which he 
had received from Hon. Charles Marsh, his father. 
A disconsolate-looking tramp was convicted before 
Judge Keyes of the larceny of the boots of United 
States Senator Dudley Chase from before the door of 
his room at the tavern in Windsor. 



20 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

He was convicted and called up for sentence. 

" You are a poor creature," said the judge. " You 
ought to have known better than to steal. Only rich 
men can take things without paying for them. And 
then you must steal in the great town of Windsor, 
and the boots of a great man like Senator Chase, the 
greatest man anywhere around. If you wanted to 
steal, why didn't you steal in some little town in 
New Hampshire, and the boots of some man who 
wasn't of any consequence? And then you must 
steal from him when he was on his way to Washing- 
ton, and, perhaps, the only boots he had. You might 
have compelled him to wait until some shoemaker 
made him another pair, and shoemakers never keep 
their promises. And perhaps by the delay some 
important treaty might have failed of ratification 
because he was not present in the Senate. The 
country might have been involved in a bloody war 
with Great Britain or some other power because of 
your stealing these boots. Now, you reckless crea- 
ture, you see what awful consequences might have 
followed your crime. What have you got to say 
why you should not be sentenced to State prison for 
the term of your natural life for stealing Senator 
Chase's boots?" 

" I have got to say that you seem to know a denied 
deal more about stealin' boots nor what I do!" piped 
the prisoner. 

"That is a sound observation," said the judge, 
" and I will onl3 r give } T ou one month in the county 
jail, not so much for stealing as for your ignorance 
in not knowing better than to steal the boots of a 
great man like Senator Dudley Chase." 

Another original and strong character in the early 



EARLY BENCH AND BAR OF VERMONT. 21 

judicial history of Vermont was Theophilus Har- 
rington. He was elected Chief Justice of the Rut- 
land County Court in 1800, and when the system was 
changed in 1803 he was elected a judge of the Su- 
preme Court and held that position until his death 
in 1813. He was a farmer, who never studied law 
until 1802, when he was admitted to the bar of the 
court of which he was Chief Justice. 

It was Judge Harrington who decided against the 
slave-owner who had arrested his slave in Vermont, 
because he could not show title from the " original 
proprietor. " The grantees named in the New Hamp- 
shire grants were called original proprietors, and 
when a lot-owner could show a chain of title which 
commenced with a deed from the proprietor to whom 
his lot was assigned in the division of the town, his 
title could only be defeated by an adverse possession 
or a subsequent deed. The slave-master supposed 
he had made a good title to the fugitive. Judge 
Harrington held otherwise. "But," pleaded the 
owner, " I show a deed from the owner of the mother 
of the slave." 

"Your title may be good in Virginia," said the 
judge. " It is worthless here unless you show from 
the original proprietor. " 

"Who, then, is the original proprietor?" asked the 
master, " if not the owner as whose slave he was 
born?" 

" The Almighty, sir !" sternly answered the judge. 
" He or his grantee can have an order f rom'this court 
to return a man to slavery. None other can !" 

I take the following notes from the letter written 
me in 1860 by Obadiah Noble, a lawyer of Tinmouth, 
then in his eighty-fourth year : " Judge Harrington 



22 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

would express more in fewer words than any man I 
ever heard speak. He took no minutes of the evi- 
dence, yet he would repeat all that was material in a 
long trial with perfect accuracy. After a clear and 
perfectly fair charge to the jury, he would often say : 
'If justice controls your verdict you will not miss 
the general principles of the law.' 

" I remember a case in which Daniel Chipman was 
counsel, in which he produced a deposition of a wit- 
ness who, he said, was one of the most reputable men 
in Troy. 'I am sorry for Troy, then,' said the 
judge, 'for if the angel Gabriel had signed that 
deposition I would not believe his testimony.' 

" I once heard him explain the statute of limita- 
tions or adverse possession in this way: 'When the 
first settlers came here a day's work would buy an 
acre of land, and men were not particular about their 
line-fences. They often varied from the true line to 
get a more convenient place for the fence. But when 
two owners made a crooked fence which gave one 
more land than his share and let it stand for fifteen 
years, that fence could not be straightened without 
the consent of both owners. ' 

" On the trial of an action of ejectment for a farm, 
the defendant offered a deed of the premises from the 
plaintiff, to which Daniel Chipman objected because 
it had no seal. 'But your client sold the land, was 
paid for it, and signed the deed, did he not?' asked 
the judge. 'That makes no difference,' said Chip- 
man; 'the deed has no seal and cannot be admitted in 
evidence.' 'Is there anj'thing else the matter with 
the deed?' asked the jiulge. Chipman 'did not 
know as there was.' 'Mr. Clerk,' said the judge, 
'give me a wafer and a three-cornered piece of 



EARLY BENCH AND BAR OF VERMONT. 23 

paper. ' The clerk obeyed, and the judge deliberately 
made and affixed the seal. 'There! Brother Chip- 
man,' said the judge. 'The deed is all right now. 
It may be put in evidence. A man is not going to 
be cheated out of his farm in this court because his 
deed lacks a wafer, when there is a whole box of 
wafers on the clerk's desk!' 'The court will give 
me an exception?' asked the counsel. 'The court will 
do no such thing,' said the judge, and he did not. 

" On another trial where counsel was examining a 
witness, Judge Harrington looked at him very in- 
tently and broke in with the question, 'Did you not 
once live in Rhode Island?' The witness answered 
that he did. 'Leave the stand, sir!' thundered the 
judge. Then turning to the lawyer he demanded 
what excuse he had for offering such a witness. 
The counsel claimed that he was an important wit- 
ness, and that his client was entitled to his evidence. 
'No, sir,' said the judge, 'that fellow don't open his 
mouth in this court. He is a knave, a scoundrel, 
who was convicted in Rhode Island for horse-steal- 
ing. ' The counsel insisted that his conviction should 
be shown by the record. 'I tell you that I know the 
fact myself. I should not know it better with a 
dozen records. Go on with the case!' '' 

With all his peculiarities, the good sense and rug- 
ged integrity of Judge Harrington made him very 
acceptable to the bar as well as to the people. One 
other anecdote of his career must suffice : 

He was vehemently opposed to the importation of 
Spanish merino sheep. On one occasion when he 
was at the State capital, a farmer who had at great 
expense imported a small flock of these sheep, and 
had them on exhibition there, had a Ions; argument 



24 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

with Judge Harrington, in which he claimed that it 
was a benefit to the farmer to improve the grade of 
wool. He succeeded in inducing the judge to see the 
sheep, believing that his prejudices could thereby be 
overcome. The judge looked at the sheep, felt the 
fineness of their wool, and said nothing. " Do you 
not see, " said the importer, " that this wool is worth 
a third more per pound than that of the coarse-wooled 
Canada sheep?" "That may be," said the judge, 
" but if improvement of wool is your object, why 
don't you go into the business of cultivating the 
negro? You could raise just as good wool and save 
the cost of dyeing !" 

My note-books contain a large quantity of material 
which has given me a high esteem for these early 
settlers of my native State. Judge Harrington was 
by no means a solitary example of a judge of the 
highest court who had no legal education, but who 
discharged judicial duties to the entire satisfaction 
of his fellow-citizens. They were strong men, those 
early settlers, almost without exception, men whose 
education was limited to reading, writing, and the 
four simple rules of arithmetic. The sharp struggle 
of their fathers for existence in a new country, the 
necessity of utilizing the labor of their sons, made 
this restricted education, acquired by a few weeks' 
attendance at the log school-house, a necessity. Yet 
there were men among them who could frame a good 
constitution, but who could not write a grammatical 
sentence. There were civil engineers, military ex- 
perts, diplomatists, and statesmen in the old Commit- 
tee of Safety. Many farmers administered the law 
from the bench. Their strong common sense, inflexi- 
ble integrity, and devotion to the principles of liberty 



EARLY BENCH AND BAR OF VERMONT. 25 

perhaps qualified them for the judicial office better at 
the time than three years' service in an attorney's 
office or lectures at the law-schools. The precedents 
they established have seldom been departed from by 
their successors, some of whom have all the advan- 
tages that study and education could give to great 
natural abilities trained by long and intelligent expe- 
rience. 



CHAPTER IV. 
A Lesson in Banking. 

The ownership of a few shares of stock and my 
neutrality in a controversy among the stockholders 
made me the president of a bank at a very early age. 
I was fortunate enough to retain the office until I 
entered the Treasury in the spring of 1861. Our 
bank redeemed its notes at the Suffolk Bank in Bos- 
ton, and I became rather intimately acquainted with 
Mr. J. Amory Davis, the president of that venerable 
conservative institution. 

In the " fifties" the profits of a country bank were 
made upon the sale of drafts upon the cities for a 
premium, or from the interest upon securities on 
which they issued their own bank-notes — in other 
words upon their circulation. For every outstajiding 
bank-note the bank was supposed to hold some inter- 
est-earning security. This was in substance the 
same as the interest upon the circulation. Our bank 
with a capital of $150,000 was permitted by law to 
carry three dollars for one, or a limit of $450,000. 
But in order to maintain the credit of our bank, it 
was necessary to redeem our notes in coin in Boston 
as well as at the counter of the bank. In old times, 
before the Suffolk system, it was easy to carry a cir- 
culation. Now, with the expresses, railroads, and 
improved means of transportation, our notes went to 
Boston as if drawn by a magnet. We were fortunate 

26 



A LESSON IN BANKING. 27 

if our circulation averaged thirty days — that is, every 
bank-note paid out was redeemed in Boston once in 
about thirty days. If our whole circulation was, say, 
$400,000, we must place in the Suffolk Bank as much 
as $400,000 ever}- thirt}* days. 

Either because he commiserated my young inex- 
perience or because he took a fancy to me, Mr. Davis 
gave me a large amount of useful advice and instruc- 
tion in bank management. One day when we were 
alone in his room he said to me : 

" Would you like to know one wa}- of distinguish- 
ing a rascal from an honest man when both are 
strangers?" 

" I certainly would," I replied. 

" I do not promise to give you any infallible rule," 
he continued. " The mind often acts upon impulse 
and without any apparent cause. If what I am 
about to tell you shall save your bank from even one 
loss, it will be worth remembering. You should ob- 
serve any stranger and form an impression about him 
as soon as he enters your bank or 3'our room. It 
will be well to sit in your chair, facing the entrance. 
If a man enters with his head erect, looking straight 
before him, and walks to the desk or window and 
states his business without hesitation or circumlocu- 
tion, he will usually turn out to be an honest man. 
But if he halts upon the threshold and looks to the 
right and to the left, scanning ever}" person present 
as if he feared recognition — if he sidles up to the 
window edgewise, he is a man to be watched. If 
he is asked to be seated and turns to look at the 
chair as if he was afraid he might sit* on something, 
it is almost certain that he is a bad man. You 
will notice other acts which I cannot describe from 



28 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

which you will draw inferences. One rule I would 
strongly recommend. If your first impression is 
against a stranger, do not change it except upon 
very strong evidence ; it is better as a rule to have 
nothing to do with him. There may not seem to be 
much value in what I am telling you, but I think its 
value will grow upon you." 

I thanked Mr. Davis for his advice and remarked 
that his experience must be valuable to me. He was 
certainly right in one respect. It has grown upon 
me. The moment I see a stranger I cannot refrain 
from forming an opinion about his character. 

Years afterward, one day when I was writing at 
my table in the directors' room, the card of a gentle- 
man who wished to see me was handed me. As I 
said "Show him in," I raised my head and saw 
standing upon the threshold a man of clerical, even 
venerable aspect, apparently about sixty years old. 
He was well dressed, with well-blacked boots, dark 
gloves, a new silk hat and white cravat. His hair 
was oiled and plastered to his head. The moment I 
saw him the whole lesson of the Suffolk president 
flashed across my memory. " I will have nothing to 
do with j T ou," I thought, though I could scarcely tell 
why, for except a sweeping glance which embraced 
every one in the room there was nothing suspicious 
in his appearance. 

He came forward and presented two letters of in- 
troduction, one from my friend, the president of the 
Suffolk Bank, the other from Blake Brothers, our 
uncurrent money brokers in Boston. They were in 
similar terms. They knew the gentleman personally 
and well; he was a member of the old firm of lum- 
bermen in Thomaston, Me., F & Co., with 



A LESSON IN BANKING. 29 

whom the writers had long done business. F ■ & 

Co. had recently sold out their lumber interests in 
Maine for $260,000. They had purchased a quarry 
about fifty miles from Chicago, 'where they employed 
four hundred men in quarrying and dressing stone. 
We might find it profitable to do business with them. 
There was no doubt about their wealth, we could 
rely implicitly upon their statements, and the writers 
"were very respectfully, etc., etc." 

As I finished reading the second letter, the person 
asked if he could leave a package in our vault for a 
few hours. I said yes — called the teller, to whom he 
handed a package, in shape like bank-notes, marked 
$10,000 in the well-known writing of the cashier of 
a bank about thirty miles away. This disposed of, 
my gentleman opened his business. 

" He had come to us," he said, "because our notes 
were well known and in general circulation in the 
town where their quarry was situated." This was 
true, for we discounted $5,000 per month for a cus- 
tomer in business there. They had been paying 
their laborers in Maine currency, but they lost time 
in going to Chicago to exchange it; sometimes got 
drunk and lost the money. Our notes they would 
keep by them until paid out for living expenses. It 
would be better for the men — much better for their 
employers (this was rather far-fetched, but it would 
pass at a pinch). He wanted to arrange with us 
ultimately for $10,000 per month if we liked the 
business and the length of the circulation was satis- 
factory. This they would make at least sixty days. 
For this money they would give us drafts on Boston 
on thirty days' time. To start the business they would 
give us sight drafts on Boston for the first $10,000. 



30 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

We corresponded daily with the Suffolk Bank and 
with Blake Brothers. I knew their paper, its en- 
graved headings and handwriting as well as our own. 
I had not the slightest doubt about the genuineness 
of the letters, or that the person was just what he 
claimed to be. A more attractive proposition to a 
country bank could not be made. He had covered 
every point. The thirty-day drafts would mature 
before the notes could come in for redemption and 
so the drafts would redeem them. In fact, the offer 
was too attractive. It was all profit for the bank. 
It was too good. 

And yet when he laid down his engraved sight 
drafts on Boston accepted by the "old, wealth}" Maine 
lumbermen,' 1 said he supposed I would like to think 
the matter over and he would call in an hour or two 
for our decision, I told him he need not take that 
trouble, for we declined his offer. At first he seemed 
dazed, he "couldn't understand it. The Suffolk 
Bank recommended him to come to us; said we 
woud like the business. Why did we decline? Did 
we doubt his word?" I answered that the Suffolk 
Bank did not guarantee our discounts ; we were un- 
der no obligation to give our reasons. 

He persisted that it was important that he should 
know our reasons and have an opportunity of an- 
swering them, and I yielded so far as to give him 
two reasons. " Your proposition is too good," I said. 
" On such paper you could have got all the currency 
you wanted without coming to Vermont. The Suf- 
folk Bank would have given it to you. My second 
reason is that we do not care to do business with 
strangers. " 

He now began to be persistent and somewhat im- 



A LESSON IN BANKING. 31 

pudent. Would I not submit his proposals to our 
board? I said: "No. The decision is final and will 
not be reconsidered." He then in an injured tone 
demanded his package. It was handed to him. He 
declared that he considered that he had been insulted, 
and stalked out of the bank into the street. 

Where did he go? What became of him? He 
was never seen or heard of afterward. If he had 
been annihilated his disappearance could not have 
been more perfect. The pursuit began next day. 
It was intelligent and thorough. It was continued 
through many months at a cost of more than thirty 
thousand dollars. It was utterly fruitless. 

" You have been defrauded. The pretended letters 
are forgeries. No such persons known to us." Such 
was the unwelcome message sent to six banks as 
soon as their letters, written on the day of his disap- 
pearance, were opened by the Suffolk Bank and 
Blake Brothers. 

The officers of the defrauded banks were so mortified 
by the success of the fraud that it was a long time 
before the details transpired. It then appeared that 
the scheme had been most carefully matured. The 
paper was identical with the letter-paper of the Suf- 
folk Bank and of Blake Brothers & Co. It was made 
by the same mill. The engraved headings and the 
writing had been most skilfully imitated. The places 
where the notes of each bank circulated at the West 
were ascertained and a story devised suited to each 
bank. There were four conspirators, each of which 
dealt with two banks. My visitor had succeeded 
with one before he called on me. Five of the others 
succeeded, one only failed. The fruits of the fraud 
gathered in a single day were sixty thousand dollars. 



32 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES 

Months elapsed before the notes began to come in for 
redemption. They came from Quebec, Toronto, St. 
Louis, New Orleans, in so small amounts and so 
scattered as to give no clew to the fraud. 

It would be idle for me to claim that our bank es- 
caped through any superior sagacity of my own. 
When the fraud was exposed I attempted to analyze 
my sensations to ascertain why I did not give him 
$10,000 in our notes for a sight draft on Boston which 
both our correspondents said was good. I decided 
that the suspicion that the transaction was too prof- 
itable would have been destroyed by the storj 7- which 
fell so naturally from the rascal's oily tongue, and 
that the lesson of the venerable city president in this 
instance saved our bank from the loss of ten thousand 
dollars. 



CHAPTER V. 

The Third House Journal — How We Re- 
formed Legislation in 1850. 

The first half of the nineteenth century touches its 
close. Legislation is in full blast. There are few 
general laws; railroads, banks, bridges, turnpikes, 
cemeteries, almost every corporation is created by a 
special charter. Much of the legislation is absurd, 
more of it dangerous. Existing corporations found 
it necessary to be represented by counsel at the State 
capital during the whole session. There were thus 
brought together many lawyers who had little to do 
but to watch the daily journal and the interests of 
their corporation clients. 

We had come to be known as the " Third House. " 
We met daily in the State Library and lampooned 
everybody who deserved our attention, especially the 
members of the two lower houses. More effective 
work for our clients was accomplished by the satir- 
ical items which we made for the newspapers than by 
our legitimate work before the committees. 

At the beginning of the session of 1850, it was 
suggested that we ought to have a permanent organ- 
ization, elect a speaker, and appoint our standing 
committees. The suggestion met with favor and 
was adopted. The proceedings of the first day's ses- 
sion were published in the first number of the Third 
House Journal. This proved to be a success, and 
3 38 



34 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

demand for it was so great that Gen. E. P. Walton 
assumed the expense of future numbers. 

Like all printed papers which have only a transi- 
tory interest, these copies amused for the moment, 
went into the waste-basket and were forgotten. 
Twenty years later I found a single number in a 
long-disused portfolio, and its perusal induced me 
to attempt to collect all the numbers. The most dili- 
gent search failed to disclose another number. It 
was not until 1874 that Henry Stevens, of London, 
submitted to me on approval a package of Vermont 
material in which were all the numbers of the Third 
House Journal for 1850 and 1851. I fastened upon 
them, had them bound, and they are now before me. 
They are valuable because they are unique. There 
is not another copy in existence. They are very 
precious to me for another reason. I have just been 
reading aloud from them, and my eyes grow moist 
when I reflect that of that circle of genial fellows, 
almost a score in number, only three survive to testify 
to a friendship which has subsisted unbroken for 
more than forty years. 

Forty years ago corporations were created by 
special acts of the legislature. Anybody could peti- 
tion for one, and, if not opposed, the act usually 
passed. New corporations thus authorized were 
often ruinous to those already established. In such 
cases the old corporation found it necessary to be rep- 
resented by counsel during the whole session. The 
contests before the committees were sometimes very 
angry. As the committees did not sit during the 
session of the House and Senate, that time was usu- 
ally employed by the lawyers in the preparation of 
their cases. The most effective way to defeat an 



THIRD HOUSE JOURNAL. 35 

application was to turn it into ridicule. The pro- 
ceedings of the Third House, now to be described, 
therefore had a definite purpose — that of defeating 
improper and unnecessary grants of charters for cor- 
porations. That purpose was successfully executed. 

So many of the members of the " Third House" 
became distinguished in legislative, judicial, and 
diplomatic life that I am not inclined to give their 
names. It is shown by the record that on Monday, 
the 4th of November, 1850, the House was called to 
order by its youngest member and proceeded to the 
choice of a speaker. Three candidates were nomi- 
nated, each of whom certified that he was neither a 
railroad attorney, a director in a turnpike company, 
nor a stockholder in a bank. After several ballots, 
one of them was elected and proceeded to deliver his 
salutatory in the approved form. Of himself, he said, 
he could do nothing, but being a son of Patience as well 
as a son of Temperance, with the assistance of the 
members he expected to rise superior to great emergen- 
cies. He should himself perform all the functions 
of the Third House unless prevented by impertinent 
interference. That everything might be done de- 
cently and in order, he would proceed to appoint the 
standing committees for the session. Among them 
were : 

A Committee on Useless Information, with power 
to collect and preserve "things lost upon earth." 

A Committee to devise additional taxes upon 
banks, colleges, female seminaries, Methodist chapels, 
two-story school-houses, lunatic asylums, and such 
like aristocratic institutions. 

A Committee on Log-Rolling, with power to report 
upon the expediency and propriety of banking with- 



36 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

out specie, trading without capital, and lobbying 
without pay. 

A Committee on Aggravation, with power to keep 
our " Southern brethren" in a stew on the subject of 
slavery, by resolution or otherwise. 

A Committee on Hocus- Pocus and Artful Dodg- 
ing, '.Twisting, Turning, Wire- Working, and Ground 
and Lofty Tumbling in connection with railroads and 
bridges. 

A Committee on Amiability of Temper, Sweet- 
ness of Disposition, Purity of Expression, Uniform 
Propriety and Decorum in social intercourse. 

Without an acquaintance with the persons ap- 
pointed on these committees no one could appreciate 
their humor. As each committee was announced, 
the crowded room was filled with a roar of applause, 
which reached a climax when the last one was filled 
by three of the most nervous, irritable, and uncom- 
fortable individuals that I have ever known in Ver- 
mont or elsewhere. 

Banks were then created by special charter. There 
were too many banks already, but every village and 
hamlet became possessed with the idea that a bank 
was necessary to develop its resources. Every im- 
provement or evidence of growth was described and 
presented with the petition for a bank to the legisla- 
ture. The result was that some banks were char- 
tered that could never be organized, and others were 
authorized for which there was no apology. 

Another evil which claimed the attention of the 
Third House was the growing custom of the legis- 
lature to visit, in a body, any section of the State sup- 
posed to be affected by new legislation. Railroads 
were in process of construction, and the country mem- 



THIRD HOUSE JOURNAL. 37 

bers were always willing to accept a free ride upon the 
railroad. Banks, railroads, and other corporations 
occupied three-fourths of the time of the legislature. 
On the first day of the session of the Third House, 
a petition was presented for the incorporation of the 
" Moosalamoo Bank" in the mountain hamlet of Rip- 
ton. The petition declared : 

" That the public interests of the town of Ripton emphati- 
cally demand an immediate charter of a bank at that place, 
to be open during the summer months, to meet the growing 
wants of a young, an elastic, and a thriving community. A 
turnpike already penetrates the heart of the village, two saw- 
mills are in the full tide of successful experiment within its 
limits, a shingle factory has shot up in its midst, and ere the 
gorgeous colors of another autumn shall have cast their glories 
upon the mountains, a blacksmith shop will occupy the spot 
lately saci-ed to the wilderness and the savage. No doubt can 
be entertained by any reasonable man that a vast capital 
could be permanently loaned to the people of Ripton, and that 
the resources of the country — the spruce, the hemlock, the 
charcoal, the partridge, and the trout — can never be success- 
fully developed without the aid of a banking institution. 

"Your petitioners therefore pray your honorable body to 
appoint some day for an excursion, to visit the proposed loca- 
tion, at the expense of the State ; and that thereafterward a 
bank may be incorporated, with a capital of five hundred 
dollars, divided into five hundred shares of one dollar each — 
the bank to be open three months in each year, with power to 
deal in fish-hooks, powder and shot, Monongahela whiskey, 
and to do a general exchange business in the various descrip- 
tions of charcoal and spruce-gum. " 

The Moosalamoo Bank promoters met with the 
usual experience of the public-spirited patriots who 
go to the legislature after a good thing. Only two 
days after their petition was presented, certain resi- 
dents of the kingdom of Tupton, on the shores of Lake 



38 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

Dunmore, presented a remonstrance which threatened 
the defeat of the enterprise. They 

. . . "looked upon the effort to obtain a charter for a bank at 
Ripton as an unwarrantable attack upon vested rights of your 
remonstrants, who reside on the borders of Lake Moosalamoo, 
vulgarly called Lake Dunmore. To grant the prayer of the 
petition would be to steal our name. Besides, the wants and 
the necessities which require a bank are tenfold greater at 
Moosalamoo City, in the kingdom of Tuptou, than at Ripton. 
We have a most extensive glass factory establishment there, 
consisting of buildings which cost $10,000, which ought to be 
employed to some good purpose instead of being a tax upon 
the owners. As many as forty banks could be kept in those 
buildings. There is a blacksmith shop already erected, a good 
building for a store, an extensive tavern establishment, a 
good haunt for muskrat, aud quite a plenty of cards and other 
small game. The flourishing village of Sodom is about one 
mile distant, where are carried on all sorts of business, un- 
profitable solely for want of bank accommodations. Not far 
away is Satan's Kingdom, where four coal-pits are burning 
and may go out for want of bank accommodations. It is only 
four miles to Jerusalem, a new and thriving village, and if it 
should be decided to rebuild the Temple there, banking facili- 
ties of one million dollars will be required before it is com- 
pleted. 

" There are at present no banks nearer than the decaying 
villages of Middlebury and Brandon. Finally, there is no way 
of getting to Ripton except over the turnpike, which has been 
so completely swept away by a freshet that its remains could 
not be found with a search-warrant. The trout and spruce- 
gum interest is as extensive here as at Ripton and the Monon- 
gahela fluid better and more abundant ; we want the bank 
more than they do at Ripton." 

This remonstrance was followed by others, new 
petitions were presented, and a debate resulted which 
was as acrimonious as the rules of the Third House 
permitted. It was continued to the end of the session, 
when it was found that there was no member who 



THE MOOSALAMOO BANK. 39 

could make up his mind which way to vote. It was 
finally decided to postpone the subject to the next 
session, two of the members intimating that they had 
learned that there was some good woodcock ground 
in that vicinity, and that they proposed to visit it, 
taking that opportunity to test the Monongahela, 
during the vacation. 

After an exhaustive research these members de- 
cided in favor of Ripton. Under their direction a 
new charter was prepared and presented at the open- 
ing of the session of 1851. It would have passed 
unanimously had not the ridicule proved too sharp 
for the two lower houses. Not only were all pend- 
ing applications rejected, but no bank has since been 
chartered by the legislature of the Green Mountain 
State. This was the charter : 

MAGNA CHARTA OF THE MOOSALAMOO BANK. 

" WJiereas, The Third House at their last session, in tender 
and sagacious consideration of the growing wants of the 
Kedentry and of the utter incapacity of the two lower Houses 
of the legislature of this State on all subjects in general and 
on most subjects in particular, did by implication and 'with 
force and arms ' direct at Montpelier aforesaid the two of its 
members most noted for wisdom and virtue to set out, locate, 
and propound for the benefit of the people and the assistance 
of the financial operations of the Third House, a certain 
Grand, Mutual, Disinterested, Reserved-Guaranty-Capital- 
Liability Institution, to be known by the name of the Moosa- 
lamoo Bank, and described and bounded as follows, to wit : 
Commencing at a hole in the ground a little way north of a 
white oak staddle on the principal trout-stream in the town 
of Ripton, four miles above the uppermost human habitation 
in said town ; running thence southerly, from the summit of 
the highest range of the Green Mountains, to a stake and stones 
standing at the foot of Rattlesnake Point ; thence in a right 
line across Lake Dunmore to the northeast corner of a shad- 



40 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

bush standing near the Devil's Den in Lower Sodom ; thence 
in a circumambient direction, in a slope movement, down 
upon, to and including the bar of Pray 's Tavern in Moosalamoo 
City ; and thence by the most convenient route to the north 
line of Ripton Flats, near the bar of Fred Smith's Tavern, and 
the Baconian Mineral Spring which irrigates the pasture lands 
of the Honorable George Chipman ; thence easterly in the said 
last-mentioned line to the place of beginning : containing all 
that part of creation, more or less, together with all the waters, 
vegetation, spruce-gum, fish, including eels and bull-pouts, 
animals, human and otherwise, and other appurtenances 
thereto belonging — the said bank being established upon the 
rotary principle ; the headquarters being at Moosalamoo City, 
with power to adjourn to any part of the aforesaid tei-ritory 
as occasion may require. 

Officers. 

" The officers of this eleemosynary corporation shall be, first : 
A governor, who shall be at least twenty-five years old, more 
or less, of as good moral character as the times will admit ; a 
member in good standing of the only true political party and 
church ; a good judge of fun, with at least four senses, viz. : 
An eye for a horse — an ear for musi c — a nose for gunpowder 
— and a taste for good liquor ; a married man, owning at least 
one dog ; attached to the principles of the Constitution of the 
United States and the Resolutions of '98. To guard against 
imposition, any candidate for the above office shall, before 
the election, justify as to qualification before the commis- 
sioners in the same manner as is provided for bail on mesne 
process. 

" Second : There shall be at least fourteen deputy-governors, 
who shall be native Americans, addicted to such virtues as a 
majority of the commissioners shall approve. It shall be the 
duty of the senior deputy -governor to preside over the deliber- 
ations of the board, provided he can justify, at such times 
only as the exigencies of business may require, when the 
governor, in the opinion of two-thirds of the stockholders 
present, shall become so far ' beguiled, ' ' disguised, ' 'fatigued, ' 
or 'discouraged' as to be inadequate to the discharge of his 
official functions. 

"Third : There shall be as many directors as may be thought 



THE MOOSALAMOO BANK. 41 

best. Each director shall have been a Plattsburgh Volunteer, 
or a member in fair standing of some flood-wood company, 
or a side judge of some county court, or a hop- inspector, or a 
secretary of some moral performance, or the proprietor of 
some patent right. He shall believe in a good time coming ; 
the Bloomer costume ; the Fourth of July ; the infallibility of 
the Third House, and the 'Manifest Destiny. ' He shall be a 
consistent advocate of Freedom of Speech, Rambouillet Sheep. 
Political Temperance, Woman's Rights, Bank Reform, Black 
Hawk and Gifford Morgan Horses, Morus Multicaulis, and the 
Universal Brotherhood of Man. 

"Fourth: There shall be a cashier, who shall consist of at 
least one man of an amiable disposition and genial tempera- 
ment, with a pocketful of rocks and a hatful of bricks. He 
shall write or play, as the case may be, a fair hand, be cogni- 
zant of the French language, accustomed to female society, 
and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the same. 

" Fifth : There shall be a committee of three of the most 
venerable, wise, sagacious, and prudent stockholders, most 
noted for wisdom and virtue, whose duty it shall be to taste 
and smell for the institution, and their sessions shall be secret. 

Regulae Generales. 

"All the financial business of the Third House shall be trans- 
acted through this institution : the debentures of the mem- 
bers, the bounty on sap and putty, the expenses of the militia 
system, of the construction, painting, and repair of the wooden 
side judges, and of such excursions as may be made by the 
Third House, and the expenses of the Montpelier Hotel Com- 
pany shall be paid at the counter in the circulating notes of 
the bank ; and any other business thought proper, when met. 

" All subscriptions to the capital stock shall be payable in 
trout, spruce-gum, lumber, game-birds, charcoal, powder and 
shot, fish-hooks, Monongahela whiskey, or other liquids to the 
acceptance of the tasters and smellers ; and in drafts on the 
North American Dog Association, indorsed by Col. Brick, on 
the call of the commissioners and at the option of the sub- 
scribers ; provided, that before signing each person shall de- 
posit with the commissioners, for the use of the stockholders, 
one pint of such fluid as shall be approved by the tasters and 
smellers, and shall take the following oath or affirmation, viz. : 



42 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

" You do solemnly swear or affirm, as the case may be, that 
you do subscribe for shares in the Moosalamoo Bank in good 
faith in the feasibility of the measure and in the hope of fat 
dividends ; with the intent on your part to retain all you- 
may get, and get what you can for your own use and benefit 
of the stockholders generally, and not under any agreement, 
understanding, or expectation that your subscription shall 
inure to the benefit of any third person or at his expense (save 
in the way of refreshments), and that you will improve the 
dividends to the advancement of sound national principles 
and the supremacy of the Third House. 

" Long may you wave. " 

The foregoing charter will become known to future 
.generations, if historians do justice to the Third 
House, not only as the most comprehensive, but as 
positively the last special bank charter presented to 
the Vermont legislature. As a measure of State 
economy it ought to have secured a large measure of 
popular gratitude to the members of the "Third 
House." But republics are notoriously ungrateful, 
and instead of approving our patriotic labors the 
members of the lower houses denounced us as a set 
of pestiferous scamps who lay awake nights to in- 
vent new schemes for ridiculing our superiors. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Wooden Side Judges of the County Courts. 

The " side judges" also had the attention of the 
Third House. This was a purely ornamental office 
bestowed upon two citizens in each county, who 
would look wise and say nothing. The change pro- 
posed would have been promptly adopted, but for the 
opposition of an ex-side judge from Grand Isle, the 
smallest county in the State, who insisted that these 
officers were sometimes consulted by the judges of the 
Supreme, who always presided in the County Courts. 
He said that when Judge Samuel S. Phelps was on 
the bench and one of the lawyers had argued a diy 
ejectment case to the jury for eight hours, Judge 
Phelps had actual^ consulted him — that although 
it was in a whisper, the judge distinctly asked, 
"Don't he make your back ache?" to which he, the 
side judge, answered that he'd "be darned if he 
didn't!" There were some who did not believe this 
statement, and those who did thought it should not 
defeat an improvement which, after the first outlay, 
would save the State expense, and had other ad- 
vantages. Accordingly, early in the session a res- 
olution was introduced and referred to the " Com- 
mittee on Useless Information" of the following tenor : 

" Resolved, That it is expedient that the present system of 
electing side County Court judges ought to be abolished, and 
that, in future, such judges should be manufactured of cast- 

43 



44 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

iron, wood, or putty, and be set up in the several court-houses 
for immediate use. " 

The committee, after, as they said, giving to the 
subject their " careful and prayerful attention," re- 
ported 

"that the institution of wooden side judges for the present 
perishable creatures of flesh and blood would eminently 
subserve the great butt-ends of public justice. They will ren- 
der the court permanent. Their decisions will be uniform. 
They will be punctual. They could not be browbeaten by 
insolent language. They would be insensible to the sophistry 
and artful appeals of demagogues. They would be incor- 
ruptible. The measure will promote cheapness and economy. 

" The committee had been much assisted by the learned au- 
thor of the Astronomical Calculations for Walton's Register, 
a gentleman of transcendent abilities, who in a mathematical 
problem in the rule of three had demonstrated that the pres- 
ent side judges cost the people $75 per hundred, while 
better meat has been selling in the butchers' stalls for three 
cents per pound. 

"The committee had been in doubt about the kind of wood 
to be used. Some were in favor of spruce because it could be 
easily kept in check and possessed gum-ption and would 
stick to its opinions. But it was objected that spruce was 
ever-green and cross-grained. Some wanted bass-wood be- 
cause it was easily impressed and exceedingly sappy, and the 
court would never be a heavy court. Others favored bird's- 
eye maple, for it would keep an open eye upon mischievous 
lawyers. But maple had to be rejected because it was inclined 
to be rotten-hearted. 

"After conferring with the Committee on Hocus Pocus, all 
differences had been compromised, and the committee recom- 
mended the construction of wooden side judges as follows, 
viz. : 

" The heads of ebony, with heavy, lowering brows, so that 
wicked lawyers would always be under the frown of the court, 
the highly polished faces thereof acting like a mirror casting 
reflections upon the bar for its sharp practices. The eyes to 
be of the most effulgent punk -wood obtainable ; the bodies 



WOODEN SIDE JUDGES. 45 

of spruce, so that the court may be kept in check, possess 
gum ption and stick to its decisions ; the heart of black locust, 
for it never rots ; the bowels of coi'k, for by reason of its light- 
ness and elasticity they would be more easily moved by the 
appeals of the unfortunate ; the backbone and legs of well- 
seasoned hickory, without joints, so that the court may not 
be bent to the purposes of unprincipled lawyers ; the arms 
of iron-wood, to remind the people of the protection of the 
strong arm of the law ; the feet of lignum vitce, so that the 
people can say that their judges have solid understandings. 

"The committee also recommend that the Rutland sculptor 
be employed to make 150 plaster casts of that number of the 
best-dressed members of the Lower House most noted for their 
beauty and sobriety ; and that 150 wooden images be manu- 
factured as hereinbefore provided, which shall be faithful 
copies of said plaster casts — 28 of which shall be distributed 
to the several counties in the State, two to each county, to be 
used as side judges ; that any attempt to usurp their places 
be punished as high-treason ; that three be donated to the city 
of Vergennes, the only city in the State and the smallest in 
the world ; that fifty be delivered to the president of the 
Historical Society, and that he be requested to deposit them 
in his receptacle of 'things lost upon earth,' to evidence the 
spirit of the age and mark an era in judicial history ; that 
the balance of said images be given to the Resident Agent of 
International Exchanges, to be by him immediately forwarded 
by express to the most illustrious of the crowned heads of 
Europe." 

The logic of this report was irresistible. Its 
recommendations were all adopted with very little op- 
position. But the " perishable creatures of flesh and 
blood" are still in use ; their wooden substitutes have 
never been sculptured. They would have been con- 
structed in 1851, as the committee afterward reported, 
but for an unfortunate complication. There were 
two hundred and forty members of the Lower House, 
and every one of them insisted that he ought to be a 
model. They would not yield to any compromise or 



46 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

consent that the fortunate one hundred and fifty- 
should be ascertained by lot. The Senators also com- 
plained that they were excluded from the competition 
and unfairly deprived of an opportunity to transmit 
their portraits to posterity at the expense of the State ; 
and so it fell out that, as in many other instances, 
human progress was delayed and a great improve- 
ment defeated by selfish personal interests. 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Vermont Floodwood or Right Arm of 
her Defence. 

Seventeen regiments of infantry and one of 
cavalry; four companies of sharpshooters; three 
batteries and one company of artillery ; six hundred 
officers contributed to the naval and military organi- 
zations outside the State; 5,287 lives, or 6.8 per 
cent of her sons engaged — these were some of the 
contributions of Vermont with her small population 
to the preservation of the Union between 1861 and 
1865. It has been said that the Vermonters did not 
lose a stand of colors during the war. Technically 
this statement is true. But Vermont cannot afford to 
have her record clouded even by a distorted statement. 
The surrender of Harper's Ferry in September, 
1862, through treachery or incompetency, comprised 
the Ninth Vermont. While the gallant Stannard 
and his men, enraged that they were not permitted 
to hew their way out, were breaking their swords 
and destroying their guns, two privates divided the 
colors and wore them on their persons. One of them 
was taken sick and went into a hospital, where they 
were taken from him. The other kept his portion 
concealed six months until he was exchanged. This 
is the only instance in which the enemy ever ob- 
tained even a part of a Vermont flag ! 

In 1851 the military resources of Vermont were 
47 



48 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

only spoken of with ridicule and contempt. I doubt 
whether she had even the skeleton of one uniformed 
company. Her fighting material had fallen into 
such a state of innocuous desuetude that it comprised 
only one person who wore a uniform. He was the 
adjutant and inspector-general, who as a private 
would have been a model of conceit, but who swelled 
with his official dignity like a cock-sparrow on a 
mullein-stalk. The official report for that year was 
as ridiculous as could well be imagined, and it was 
so stuffed and padded with military terms as to be 
incomprehensible to the average reader. 

Such a subject, such a document, and such an officer 
formed a toothsome morsel for the Third House. I 
was the chairman of the Committee on Floodwood. 
My associates were a poet of Democratic principles 
and a Plattsburgh Volunteer who in 1814 stajxd his 
steps at the wharf in Burlington because for the 
militia to go outside the State was a violation of 
the Federal Constitution ! His personal appearance 
strongly suggested that of a walrus, and he added 
greatly to our amusement by an honest belief that 
we were in " dead earnest " in our efforts to excite 
the military ardor of the Green Mountain bo} 7 s. 

My committee did not permit the grass to grow 
under its feet. It promptly reported that existing 
laws relating to the militia were " unconstooshunal" 
(this was the word of the Plattsburgh Volunteer) 
and in utter disregard of the precepts of the Father 
of his Country and the great Apostle of Democracj', 
namely, G. Washington and T. Jefferson. So much 
was obvious from the masterly, eloquent, and lucid 
report of the adjutant-general, which covered so 
much ground that there was none left for the com- 



THE VERMONT FLOODWOOD. 49 

mittee to stand upon. We therefore reported "An 
Act for the resurrection of the Vermont Floodwood, 
and to create certain salaried officers therein named." 
This act in its first section provided : 

" That it shall be the duty of every male citizen above the 
age of sixteen years forthwith to provide himself with a red 
feather or plume, at least three feet long, together with such 
other ornaments as the taste or ability of the individual may 
suggest, with some offensive weapon, not dangerous to be 
handled, a priming wire and brush, for the purpose of doing 
duty in the floodwood of this State. Provided that in lieu of 
these ornaments and equipments any person may provide 
himself with any musical instrument whereon he may be able 
to play. 

" Section 2. — It shall be the duty of every such male citizen 
to repair, armed, equipped, and ornamented as provided in 
the first section, at the break of day on Tuesday and Thursday 
of eacli week, to the yard of the dwelling-house of the town 
clerk of the town where he resides, for floodwood purposes and 
general training, and to spend said days until sundown 
in such services. 

" Section 3. — There shall be at least two officers to every pri- 
vate in the Vermont floodwood, provided that any person with 
curled hair and black whiskers shall be ex-whiskerando an 
officer of as high a grade as lieutenant-general. 

" Section 4. — It shall be the duty of the adjutant and inspec- 
tor-general immediately to set out from his place of abode, 
armed and equipped as the law directs, preceded by drum- 
major, drummer, fifer, and corporal, armed with some weapon 
of war, and proceed into each school district to consult with 
the boys as to the best method of encouraging a spirit of mar- 
tial ardor, and to make permanent arrangements with the 
school master or mistress, as the case may be, as to the best 
way to get up a spirit of militaiy enthusiasm and induce the 
pupils of each school to attend all June and other trainings 
in such towns. 

" Section 5. — There shall be immediately appointed one hun- 
dred and fifty assistant adjutant-generals — men noted for 
personal beauty, to be chosen by a female committee of three 
4 



50 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

of mature age, to be named by the governor ; which officers 
shall assist the present adjutant- general in the discharge of 
his arduous duties and hold up the general interests of the 
floodwood. These officers, if already married, or if they shall 
marry within sixty days after their appointment, shall hold 
office for life with an annual salary of $1, 500 each per annum. " 

This act was laid on the table and published in 
the Third House Journal. It brought the disgrace- 
ful condition of the militia to the attention of the 
State and excited a universal demand for its refor- 
mation. A well-framed act to that end was promptly 
introduced into the Senate. Those who had opposed 
similar acts on the score of expense were set upon by 
the newspapers and lashed into silence. The new 
act simply provided that the State should furnish 
arms to uniformed companies, and pay the men a 
per diem for a few days' drill in each year. The 
consequence was that uniformed companies were or- 
ganized in the larger towns and their ranks kept 
full. So that when at last Sumter fell and the 
summons came, it was answered by the formation of 
the First Vermont Regiment, ready at Rutland to be 
mustered into the service on the 8th of May, 1861. 

It may be thought that I am giving too much 
space to a subject so unimportant as the Third 
House. But its influence upon legislation was 
powerful aud permament. Once the lower Houses 
were rash enough to complain of the librarian for 
permitting such " pestilent fellows" to show up their 
follies in the State Library. This complaint made 
great fun for us. We forthwith published our solemn 
protest against the interference of their spies with 
our dignified sessions, and gave notice that if they 
provoked us farther we would appeal to the people 



THE VERMONT FLOODWOOD. 51 

to abolish the lower Houses altogether, so that " the 
places that once knew them should know them no 
more forever, " and they " shall cease to have a local 
habitation and a name ;" and the dark chambers where 
they met and played "fantastic tricks before high 
Heaven, under the delusion that they were clothed 
with a little brief authority, " " shall be given over to 
desolation, and only the hooting of the owl be heard 
within their walls ;" " and the satyr shall dance there, 
and the great owl and the pelican, and the gier-eagle 
shall nest and the cormorant shall brood there, when 
those members have been driven forth into exile and 
outer darkness by the voices of an indignant people." 
After this they let us alone, and we continued to 
make their action as ridiculous as possible. Almost 
every project we touched we destroyed. They had 
planned an excursion to Rouse's Point, where a rail- 
road bridge across the lake was advocated and op- 
posed on the most absurd grounds. We at once ar- 
ranged to "excurse to Pocatapaug Flats, where it 
was feared that a proposed bridge would raise the 
water ten miles above, four feet higher than at the 
bridge, whereby the navigation of Lake Pemigewasset 
in New Hampshire would be obstructed," and the leg- 
islature took no more excursions. They passed a 
stringent act against the use of strong liquors except 
for "mechanical, medicinal, and chemical purposes." 
Our Committee on Useless Information produced 
sundry vouchers for the year 1788, containing 
" rhum, cyder, and flip " for the legislature, approved 
by Governor Thomas Chittenden, and we compro- 
mised the opposition by enacting that the term 
" mechanical " in the act should include the raising 
of barns and like cases, " medicinal " should cover 



52 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

cases of thirst and the like, and "chemical" cases 
where the fluid was employed as an aid to digestion. 
Two railroads on competing lines leading to Boston 
had almost reached Lake Champlain at Burlington. 
One of them by a combination with another leading 
northward would reach the lake at Rouse's Point. 
The other sought for a parallel charter to reach the 
same point. A fierce contest resulted — one endeavor- 
ing to defeat the application for a bridge so that its 
competitor could not cross; the other to defeat the 
charter so that its competitor could not reach the lake. 
The arguments of both parties were equally absurd 
and altogether ignored the public interest. It was this 
contest which called for the Committee on Hocus- 
Pocus, Log-Roiling, Wire-Working, etc. This com- 
mittee was made up of the presidents of the two com- 
peting roads and the one leading from Burlington 
north. That committee made a solemn and compre- 
hensive report on the abstruse subject of log-rolling, 
which caused the very proper grant of both charters 
as the public interest demanded. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
A Grateful Client. 

It was before the invention of the telegraph, when 
Vermont had no railroads and the Green Mountains 
were supposed to present an insurmountable barrier 
to their construction. One afternoon, when the teller 
of the oldest, soundest, and most conservative bank 
in Burlington was about to seal up his daily package 
of current bills for transmission to the common re- 
deemer of country banks, the Suffolk Bank in Boston, 
there entered the bank a youth, apparently inexperi- 
enced and very unsophisticated, who with a bashful 
air asked if he could leave a little money in the bank 
for a few days. He was travelling, he said, to see 
the country. His father advised him, when he in- 
tended to stay in any place for a few days, always 
to leave his money in a bank. Burlington was a 
beautiful town. He would stay here a few days and 
would like to do what his father recommended. The 
teller, who thought the young man should be en- 
couraged in well-doing, said he would take his money 
on deposit. 

The youth then proceeded to extract a number of 
pins from the breast-pocket of his coat, from which 
he drew a sealed envelope, which he opened, expos- 
ing a pocket-book of ancient construction, in which 
lay fifteen new and crisp bank-notes each for $100, 
apparent^ issued by the " Shoe and Leather Bank of 

53 



54 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

Boston." The teller cast his eye upon them. He 
recognized the genuine appearance of the bills. 
They were just what the bank wanted. They would 
increase the credit of the bank with the Suffolk just at 
a time when circulation was coming in and they were 
having some trouble to take care of it. He asked 
the name of the depositor, entered his deposit upon 
a book, handed it to the careful boy, added his deposit 
to the package, and increased his remittance by that 
amount. Just then the expressman called, received 
the package, and the transaction was closed. 

As soon as the bank opened the next morning the 
young man was its first customer. He had received 
a letter announcing the dangerous illness of his 
mother and must return home at once. He regretted 
it, for he had never seen so beautiful a town as Bur- 
lington, and he wanted to stay there a week or ten 
days. But he would have to leave at once and had 
called for his money. The teller counted out fifteen 
hundred dollars in bills of his bank and was about 
to enter the credit on the deposit- book, when the boy 
protested. He " wanted the same bills he had de- 
posited! He knew all about those bills," he said. 
" He knew nothing about those which the teller of- 
fered him !" The teller explained to him that his notes 
had been sent to Boston, that the notes of his bank 
were just as good. The boy was finally half-satis- 
fied, deposited the bills in his breast-pocket, pinned 
it up, and courteously took his leave. 

In due course of mail the teller and his bank 
learned that the careful body's deposit was worth just 
fifteen dollars, every one of the one-hundred-dollar 
bills having been neatly altered from a genuine bill for 
one dollar ! 



A GRATEFUL CLIENT. 55 

Now the bank had a comfortable surplus upon 
which $1,500 would make but little impression. But 
the mortification of the bank officers, swindled by 
such an apparent greenhorn, was intolerable. They 
made every effort to suppress the incident, but it be- 
came public, and the ridicule of the newspapers and 
the comments of their brother bank officers were 
very hard to bear. The bank spared neither time 
nor money in its efforts to bring the guilty parties to 
justice. There were no Pinkertons then, but there 
were private detectives. These were employed, large 
rewards were offered, several arrests were made, but 
they were unable to lay hands upon the inexperi- 
enced traveller. Among the private detectives em- 
ployed was one who afterward became somewhat 
notorious, under the name of Marcus Cicero Stanley. 

Some two years after the event the newspapers an- 
nounced that the criminal had been captured. The 
teller had identified him in a crowd of prisoners in 
the " Tombs," in New York City, and after a vigor- 
ous resistance by legal obstructions he had been 
brought to Burlington under a requisition from the 
governor. 

" The young man who is charged with passing the 
altered bank-notes wishes to see you," said the 
sheriff to me one morning in court some days after 
the prisoner's arrival. 

"I want business," I answered, "but not quite 
enough to go to the jail after it and undertake the 
defence of a counterfeiter." 

" He may not be a counterfeiter," said the sheriff. 
"At all events, I have become interested in the 
young man, and I will bring him to your office if 
you will hear his story." 



56 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

I assented to the request of the sheriff. He came 
to my office with a young man who did not look like 
a counterfeiter. He was apparently about twenty 
years old ; was neatly dressed ; had rather a feminine 
expression and the address of a gentleman familiar 
with the usages of good society. When the sheriff 
had presented him he drew from his ringer a ring 
containing a single diamond, which he offered to me. 
"There," he said, "is the only thing of value I pos- 
sess. In the ' Tombs ' in New York I fell into the 
hands of shysters who got all 1113' money, nearly all 
my clothing, even to my linen, and when they had 
stripped me of everything they could sell or pawn 
they abandoned me. This ring was in a pocket-book 
or they would have had that. I am brought here 
among strangers, destitute. But I am innocent, and 
if you will defend me I will pay you if I live. " 

"Have you any proof of your innocence?" I asked. 

" Only this," he said. " As I was leaving the police 
court in the Tombs the clerk handed me this." He 
showed me a letter dated in the police court, of the 
following import : 

"I doubt whether this young man is guilty of the crime 
charged. I know that he was not identified by the teller, among 
the Tombs prisoners, until he was pointed out by Stanley after 
the teller had selected another man. 

"S. H. Stuart, Clerk." 

He then told me his story. " I do not remember my 
father or mother," he said. "The first thing I do re- 
member is living in the streets of New York, sleeping 
in a box or anywhere I could find shelter. Then I was 
an errand-boy in a policy-shop in the Bowery, where 
I swept the office, ran errands, slept under the 
stairs, was kicked and cuffed by everybody. After 



A GRATEFUL CLIENT. 57 

some years I saved a little money and ran away. I 
worked my way to St. Louis, where I got employment 
as a cabin-boy on a Mississippi steamboat. The cap- 
tain was kind to me, and when his boat was laid up I 
went to a night-school, where I learned to read and 
write. I was on that boat more than three years. I 
was waiter, steward, bar-tender, and finally clerk or 
second officer. I saved money and tried to be a 
gentleman. The captain died and I decided to go to 
California. I had six hundred dollars and a trunk 
filled with good clothes. I came to New York, 
bought my ticket by the way of the Isthmus. Then 
I was arrested by Stanle}*; you know the rest. I 
was never nearer this town than Albany until I was 
brought here charged with this crime." 

" Did you know Stanley in New York?" I asked. 

" Yes — as a boy would know a lottery sharp who 
made the office his headquarters." 

" Was there any hearing in your case in New 
York?" 

" I do not know what j'ou would call it. While my 
money lasted I was brought into court almost daily. 
When that was gone I was sent here at once." 

" Then you do not know what evidence was pro- 
duced against you?" 

" No. I was told that one of the bank officers un- 
dertook to identify me at the Tombs. We prisoners 
were all brought into a room together. I was told 
that the teller first selected a man who was serving a 
three-days' sentence for intoxication. And I have 
heard that one of Stanley's friends says that I told 
him how neatly I deceived the teller. That was a 
lie, but Stanley would rather prefer a lie. " 

I told the young man, who said his name was 



58 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

Thomas B. Wilson, that his story gave scarcely a 
shadow of available evidence in his favor. The 
statement of the teller made a prima- facie case. If 
that was confirmed by a confession, testified to even 
by an accomplice, I did not see any way of meeting 
it. If he attempted to prove that he was on the Mis- 
sissippi at the time, his captain was dead, and if alive, 
we could not use his deposition in a criminal case. 
It might be better for him to plead guilty and so 
get a lighter sentence. 

"I am not guilty," he said. " I will never plead 
guilty if I am sentenced for life and know that by 
pleading guilty I could get off with one year in the 
State prison. I have no claim on you, an entire 
stranger, but don't you see it is my last chance? I 
ask you to defend me on my promise. If jow will, 
I will never leave this town until I have paid you 
and have convinced decent people that I am neither 
a counterfeiter nor a fraud." 

This looked a little like bravado, and yet I could not 
avoid some prepossession in his favor. I said that 
his trial would not come on for some weeks ; that I 
would consider his request and let him know within 
a few days whether I would appear in his behalf. 

I corresponded with a firm in St. Louis which he 
said was the agent of the steamboat on which he was 
employed. They answered that they remembered 
such a man, but could not say that they knew him 
as early as the date of the crime. The clerk of the 
" Tombs" police court answered that the pretended 
identification took place in his presence ; that there 
was nothing in it ; that the teller first selected an- 
other prisoner, and only named Wilson after he had 
been pointed out by Stanley. This proof, however^ 



A GRATEFUL CLIENT. 59 

could not avail him unless the clerk would appear 
at the trial. 

A man unjustly accused should never despair. 
There is a human magnetism that may save him. 
As the time for the trial approached the sheriff he- 
came a firm believer in Wilson's innocence and pro- 
posed to pay the expenses of Stuart, the police-court 
clerk, if he would attend the trial and I would de- 
fend Wilson. The bank in the mean time had caused 
Wilson's arrest in a civil action to recover the money. 
Under these circumstances I consented to appear for 
him. He had in the mean time been emplo} T ed by 
the sheriff as clerk in a hotel kept by him in a build- 
ing connected with the jail, and had made himself 
very popular with its country patrons. 

Still the prospects of his trial were very discour- 
aging. The presiding judge of the court, although 
he intended to be impartial, always presumed that a 
person charged with crime was guilty until his 
innocence was proved; the statutes did not then per- 
mit the prisoner to testify; the bank officers were 
influential citizens who took a deep interest in secur- 
ing Wilson's conviction, and the able counsel for the 
bank were permitted to conduct the prosecution. 
They made the trial dramatic. After giving a history 
of the crime and of his identification of the prisoner 
in the " Tombs, " the teller was asked : 

"Where is the person now who gave you those 
altered bills?" The teller waited until the attention 
of the crowded audience was fixed upon the prisoner ; 
then pointing to him he replied with emphasis : 

" There sits the man. I am as certain of it as I am 
that I am a witness ! " 

Hopeless as the prospect appeared, I cross-examined 



GO PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

the teller fairly but very closely. In the dim twi- 
light of the court-room, with the respondent sitting 
half concealed behind me, I made him describe 
the counterfeiter as he was when he passed the notes. 
He did not suspect my purpose and described the 
green, awkward country lout with the skill of a 
painter. He imitated his nasal voice, his dialect, 
his motions, until the jury had before them the very 
image of the man. The lights were then brought 
in, and Wilson was asked to stand up in front of the 
jury and near the witness. He was a handsome, well- 
dressed young gentleman, as different from the per- 
son of the counterfeiter just described by the witness 
as could be imagined. His demeanor was unstudied 
and perfectly natural. The confidence of conscious 
innocence seemed to be expressed by his countenance. 
Anybodj x could see that his appearance did not cor- 
respond to that of the criminal as it rested in the 
memory of the witness in the slightest degree ; any- 
body could understand that if he were guilty no re- 
liance could be placed upon human judgment of the 
exterior of men accused of crime. 

"Mr. G.," I asked, "do you consider yourself an 
experienced judge of men?" 

" I ought to be," he said, "after an experience of 
thirty years." 

"You have testified that you identified Wilson 
among a number of other prisoners in the ' Tombs.' 
Please point out to the jury what you saw in him 
that led j'ou to think he was the awkward, green coun- 
tryman who passed these notes." 

I have cross-examined many witnesses. I re- 
member no question to any of them which produced 
such an effect. He hesitated, seemed making an 



A GRATEFUL CLIENT. 61 

effort to speak, and was silent. Waiting until I 
thought the due effect was produced on the jury, I 
said: 

" Never mind ! we can all appreciate your difficulty. 
Now please answer me this. Did you not first select 
another man in the ' Tombs ' as the criminal?" 

He hesitated again and half admitted that he did. 

I said I had no more questions. I was young at 
the bar, but I had learned when to stop in the cross- 
examination of a hostile witness. The skilful counsel 
for the bank, by suggestions and otherwise, made 
him try to repair the damage. The attempt was un- 
availing. He left the stand, and I knew that a fatal 
blow had been struck to the case of the prosecution. 

I gave the case another shock when I called Stuart, 
the clerk of the Tombs police court, to prove that the 
teller first selected another man. He was an elderly 
man of dignified presence, and was treated by the 
court and the counsel for the bank as if he had 
volunteered to protect a criminal. His evidence was 
excluded on the ground that the teller admitted what 
I offered to prove by him, but the moral effect of his 
presence was in our favor. 

I will not prolong the account. There was a pow- 
erful argument by the leading counsel of the bank, a 
terrific charge against him by the judge, but to the 
delight of the audience, manifested by ringing cheers, 
the jury acquitted the prisoner. 

As Wilson could not furnish bail, I moved the 
trial of the civil action in favor of the bank. The 
bank submitted to a judgment in the prisoner's 
favor, and as it had the right to do, entered a review 
from it and so postponed the final trial until the next 
term, a delay of six months. 



62 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

Wilson knew that the bank would have the evi- 
dence to secure a verdict at the next trial, if money 
would procure it. The officers treated his acquittal 
as a personal defeat, and it gave them excessive an- 
noyance. He had some advantages. The sheriff 
trusted and employed him, so that he was under no 
restraint. We could use depositions in the civil case. 
Those of the police clerk, the warden of the prison, 
and of the person first identified by the teller were 
taken. By correspondence Wilson found two mer- 
chants in St. Louis who gave their depositions that 
their books showed that Wilson was one of their cus- 
tomers continuously for a year before and a year 
after the crime was committed, thus proving his 
alibi. This was all the preparation of which his 
case admitted. 

A day or two before the term, while Wilson was 
in consultation with me in my office, my clerk pre- 
sented the card of two gentlemen who wished to see 
me. The card bore the name of " Mr. Marcus Cicero 
Stanley and friend. 1 ' 1 I showed it to Wilson. 
"Let them come in," he said. "Let us ascertain 
what the scoundrels want." They were admitted. 
Stanley proved to be a small, muscular fellow, with 
red hair and whiskers. He had the restless eyes and 
hard face of a knave, while his companion had the 
downcast look, well-oiled hair, and furtive bearing of 
a typical thief. "How do you do, Tom?" said 
Stanley with friendly cordiality. Wilson made no 
response. " What do you want, gentlemen?" I de- 
manded. 

Their mission was characteristic. Stanley said 
the bank had not treated them well. They had come 
from New York at its request to testify against Wil- 



A GRATEFUL CLIENT. 63 

son. The bank would only pay them some small 
amount, which they named. If Wilson would give 
them one hundred dollars, they would leave the State 
and not appear against him. Wilson, I saw, was 
almost bursting with indignation. 

"What do you know against Wilson?" I de- 
manded. 

Stanley said he had seen the altered notes, and 
knew when Wilson and the friend here present 
started from New York to "shove them" on the 
country banks in Vermont. He was absent a few 
days and came back very "flush" with money. 
Wilson and his friend took the steamer through the 
lake at Whitehall. Wilson landed at Burlington, 
while his friend went on to St. Johns, where Wilson 
met him the next evening, told him how he had 
"chiselled" the teller, and gave him half the profits 
of the swindle. 

"What do you think of that story, Wilson?" I 
asked. 

"If I had any fear that the jury would believe 
those scoundrels I would pitch them out of this 
third-story window !" he answered. " Stanley ought 
to be in the State prison, I know ; and from his ap- 
pearance I think that other fellow has been there. 
I have not a hundred dollars, as you know. If I had 
a million I would not give them one copper to save 
their worthless lives. Pay them to go away after 
they have got all the money they can out of the 
bank? No ! I prefer to trust a fair jury !" 

" You make a mistake, Tom. You had better " 

"Stanley! don't you call me Tom! and you had 
best not tempt me farther. I have been robbed of 
everything, imprisoned, disgraced by and through 



64 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

you. You are a coward, I know. If I did not hope 
to be a reputable man and to keep out of trouble, I 
would brain you where you stand ! Heaven knows 
that it is difficult for me to keep from choking the 
life out of your body !" 

Wilson rushed from the room. I knew he went 
because he feared to trust himself, and I could not 
but respect him. Stanley tried to continue the inter- 
view, but I pointed to the door and told them that 
they had their answer. " Then we will have to 
swear," he said, and they departed. 

The trial came on. We had what I have often 
declared to be the safe shelter and protection of an 
innocent man, a jury of twelve hard-headed, sensible 
Vermont farmers. The teller told his story as be- 
fore. He was prepared for my cross-examination 
now, and I dropped him with a few indispensable 
questions. Stanley's companion then took the stand 
and testified to the story told in my room. His 
hang-dog look grew more villanous when I sharply 
asked, "When were you last in State prison?" The 
counsel for the bank objected that I must show the 
record of his conviction. The court sustained the 
objection. As a lawyer, I was bound to submit, but 
for a half -hour I put proper questions to him under 
which he broke down, and finally blurted out the 
statement that he had been pardoned out of Sing 
Sing that he might give his testimony on this trial. 

Then Stanley was called. As he passed me to take 
the stand, he secretly placed in my hand a scrap of 
paper on which was written, " Ask me about Wilson's 
whiskers and mustaches." On his direct exam- 
ination he almost made a splendid witness for the 
bank. He knew a young man in a policy-office who 



A GRATEFUL CLIENT. 65 

was connected with a gang of counterfeiters. He 
was quite certain it was Wilson. The gang brought 
out some bills altered from one dollar to one hundred 
dollars on a bank in Boston. They were a skilful 
alteration. The gang scattered to "shove them." 
Wilson left the city for some weeks, and it was said 
that he had gone north to Canada to pass these bills. 
When he returned he had a lot of money. He knew 
it, for Wilson paid him fifty dollars, which he owed 
him, and showed him a large bundle of bills besides. 
He produced a memorandum-book showing the date 
of this payment. It coincided with the date of the 
crime. 

As the testimony stood, it was unanswerable. 
My case depended on breaking down the statement 
of an utter wretch who was also an experienced 
witness. His direct evidence was completed, and 
the court adjourned for the day. 

I was very cautious on his cross-examination the 
next morning. " Are you willing to swear," I asked, 
" that Wilson here is the person you knew in a policy- 
office in the Boweiy?" He thought he was. He 
was almost certain of it, and yet he declined to say 
that he might not be mistaken. " Could he describe 
the person he knew there?" "Certainly. He was 
a young man, always well dressed, with dark hair 
and very black whiskers and mustache." "Might 
not his whiskers have been false?" " Certainly not I 
He had once pulled them playfully, to Wilson's great 
indignation. They were very black and very gen- 
uine." So much he knew. 

Again Wilson was asked to stand in presence of 
the jury. His chin and upper lip were as innocent 
of any growth of hair as the face of a girl. The 
5 



66 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

witness was required to examine and to say whether 
that face had ever borne whiskers or mustaches. 

He made the examination, hesitated for a moment, 
and then exclaimed: "My God! gentlemen, here 
has been a fearful mistake! This man is not the 
person I once knew. He is not the man who was in 
the policy-shop — who was connected with the coun- 
terfeiters. I have been mistaken, and the least I can 
do is to apologize !" 

This was the end of the plaintiff's case. I was 
satisfied that Stanley, having got from the bank all 
the money it would pay, deliberately deserted it, 
and decided that it was better not to persist in his 
perjury. A verdict in Wilson's favor was promptly 
returned by the jury. 

A day or two after his acquittal, Wilson came to 
my office with two citizens of the town. He wished 
me to prepare a conveyance of a vacant lot of land ad- 
joining the bank which had pursued him with such 
energy, and a contract for the erection upon it of a 
building. He then explained to me that he should 
never leave the town until every citizen who was un- 
prejudiced had become satisfied that he was neither 
a counterfeiter nor a criminal ; that he therefore in- 
tended to go into business and establish a family 
grocery-store adjoining the bank which had accused 
him and made him so much trouble. 

I prepared the contracts, and in a few months he 
was established in business. He was industrious, 
he very soon had a large circle of good patrons, and 
was successful. He called for my bill of charges, and 
paid me liberally within a few months after his store 
was opened. 

Within a year after his acquittal, one of our rep- 



A GRATEFUL CLIENT. 67 

utable citizens consulted me confidentially upon a 
subject of great interest to him. Wilson had asked 
him for the hand of his daughter. His conduct had 
been very honorable ; he could not expect at present 
that he would not by many be looked upon with sus- 
picion and not as a reputable man, but he hoped to 
live down all prejudices and establish himself in the 
good opinion of the public in the end. He had re- 
ferred the father of the young lady to me, for I knew 
more about him than any one else and would no 
doubt give him advice upon which he could rely. 

I assured the citizen that I supposed Wilson had 
an unknown origin and was almost literally a child 
of the streets; but I thought he deserved great credit 
for his efforts to overcome the disadvantages of his 
birth and the charges made against him by the 
bank, and to establish his innocence and become a 
reputable man ; that his daughter would undoubtedly 
run some risk and sometimes be subjected to morti- 
fication, but I thought the chances were in Wilson's 
favor; that he would be a successful business man 
and a kind husband. 

They, were married and children were born to 
them. Mrs. Wilson was a plain woman, but the 
town contained no wife more contented, no more 
prudent, discreet, or devoted mother. The business 
of her husband prospered; he took his wife's parents 
into his family, where their remaining years were 
passed in ease and comfort. When they passed 
away Wilson closed his business, sold his property, 
and removed his family to New York City. He had 
a strong desire to conquer a position in the city from 
which he had been removed as a criminal. When I 
next had news of him he had become the purchaser 



68 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

of a church, left behind by the up-town movement of 
its congregation, and established in it the then new 
business of manufacturing and distributing mineral 
waters. His neat wagons, with fine Green Mountain 
horses and well-dressed, civil drivers, became as 
common in the streets as the milk- wagons of country 
dairies. 

My recreation at that time was the study of the 
natural sciences, and I was engaged in making a 
collection of all the birds of Vermont. One Christmas 
Eve there came to my house a large box, upon which 
the express charges were paid. It contained an early 
copy of the author's editions of Audubon's Birds and 
Audubon and Bachman's Quadrupeds of America 
in ten elegantly bound octavo volumes. They were 
my Christmas present from Wilson. Their money 
value was several hundred dollars, but they had a 
greater value to me. They have stood on my library 
shelves for nearly forty years — they stand there still, 
their gloss worn off by many consultations. 

This story has a moral. The bank no longer ex- 
ists. Of its officers, directors, and principal owners, 
not one survives. Their descendants are not numer- 
ous ; I do not know one who has been conspicuous in 
any department of human industry; some have been 
no credit to their ancestors or their advantages. 

Wilson's children have grown up and each has 
gone out into the world to fight his or her own battle 
of life. At home they were trained by a careful 
mother, with the good example of the father as an 
object-lesson. The university, the mercantile col- 
lege, the seminary were all laid under contribution 
to give them the advantages of a good, practical 
education. The daughters without exception are 



A GRATEFUL CLIENT. 69 

good wives, the sons are successful men — one of them 
may be called an eminent mechanical engineer. All 
are useful members of society. 

At the time there were many who believed that my 
intervention had enabled a reprobate to defeat jus- 
tice and evade the State prison. Most of them have 
since revised their conclusions. I, at least, have 
never regretted that I had faith in a young man 
when appearances were against him, that I defended 
him on credit, and so secured to myself at least one 
grateful client. 



CHAPTER IX. 
Hypnotism — Spiritual and Other Isms. 

" The thing that hath been, it is that which shall 
be ; and that which is done, it is that which shall be 
done; and there is no new thing under the sun." 

It is a common expression when any novel and ex- 
traordinary thing is seen by us for the first time to 
say that nothing like this was ever seen before. 
This is almost universally asserted of what are called 
novel spiritual manifestations. A year seldom passes 
without producing them. I profess no ability to ex- 
plain or account for them. I shall describe a spirit- 
ual exhibition which I once witnessed, just as well 
as I am able to, exactly as we supposed we saw it, 
and leave my readers to make their own explana- 
tions. I think the story will at least tend to confirm 
the words of the " preacher. " 

It is useless to assert that all believers in modern 
spiritualism have some defect in their intellectual or- 
ganization. I have met with close thinkers, men who 
possessed the mens sana in corpore sano, who be- 
lieved that they received frequent visits from the 
spirits of their deceased friends, as thoroughly as 
they believed in the existence of any object which 
was affirmed by all their senses. 

A very pleasant writer and sound thinker was S. 
C. Hall, for so many years editor of the London Art 
Journal. And a very entertaining writer was Anna 
Maria, as he called her — his wife. They were 

70 



HYPNOTISM— SPIRITUAL AND OTHER ISMS. 71 

charming in their own beautiful home, and none 
who were admitted to their society ever failed of 
delightful memories. Before he was an author Mr. 
Hall was a barrister, trained to intellectual con- 
troversy, and those who discussed moral subjects 
with him soon learned not to despise their adver- 
sary. I was once present in his home b}^ invitation, 
where he was to show me a collection of Wedgewood 
pottery, which, on my recommendation, an American 
friend purchased. He was thoroughly familiar with 
the history of all the Wedgewood pottery, and was 
in the middle of a most interesting story of some of 
Wedgewood's disappointing experiments, when he 
very abruptly said : 

" Excuse me ! It had entirely escaped my memory, 
but I have a positive engagement at this hour. It 
will occupy but a short time. Pray amuse yourself 
with a book while I keep it." 

I said, " Certainly, " and went to an open book- 
case, expecting to see him go out, or at least leave 
the room. To my surprise he remained sitting si- 
lent in his chair. I was embarrassed. I did not 
know but he wanted to be rid of me before attending 
to his appointment, but the cordiality of his manner 
and his suggestion of the book made that conclusion 
impossible. I waited ; it was for him to resume the 
conversation when he thought proper. 

It was fifteen minutes by the watch before he spoke. 
"I have a very dear sister," he said. -'We have 
long been accustomed to meet in this room every 
Tuesday at this hour. She is very sensitive and I 
could not endure the thought of disappointing her. 
But I do deeply regret my apparent neglect of an 
American visitor." 



72 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

" I beg you will not think any apology is necessary. 
My apartments are only a few blocks away. It will 
put me to no inconvenience to come again. Does 
your sister reside near you?" 

"Very, very near," he replied. "She is in the 
spirit-world. She went there twenty years ago. 
But you need not go," he continued, as I rose to take 
my leave. " We have had our meeting and she has 
gone !" 

He resumed the subject of our conversation and 
completed his relation. I referred to the subject of 
spiritualism. He told me that much the larger por- 
tion of his intercourse now was with persons in the 
spirit-world, that Mrs. Hall was in full sympathy 
with his belief, and that some of their most delight- 
ful companions were no longer in the body. It was as 
impossible to doubt his sincerity as his personal pres- 
ence. Nor was his belief at all unusual. It is en- 
tertained by many who will not and a few who are 
quite willing to confess their faith. 

Forty years and more gone by ; a showman gave 
exhibitions in New England. He was a bullet- 
headed, loud-voiced fellow of the regular circus type. 
He usually selected from his audience a dozen or 
more persons whom he seated in the front row. In 
the right hand of each man he placed a small disk of 
copper, with a round piece of brass in its centre. 
Each person was directed to fix his mind intently on 
this disk, while the " Professor," as he called himself, 
g}^rated with his hands and looked fierce with his 
eyes. After a few minutes of this senseless perform- 
ance he assorted his subjects. Some he returned 
to their seats, the majority of the others he seated 
together in view of the audience. 



HYPNOTISM— SPIRITUAL AND OTHER ISMS. 73 

Without any explanation he began his exhibition. 
" It is very cold ! I am almost freezing !" Each of his 
subjects began to shiver and tremble with apparent 
cold. " How hot it is !" and while some threw off their 
coats, others fanned themselves, still others rushed to 
and opened the windows, and all appeared to be suf- 
fering from the heat. 

" Look, " said he, " at that lovely picture. See that 
mother with the child — could anything be more 
lovely?" They clasped their hands and gazed with 
adoration. "This is my garden. Here are roses 
and flowers, peaches and plums of exquisite taste! 
Gather as many as you like !" Some picked flowers 
and pinned them on their breasts; others ate the 
peaches as if they were luscious. "Be careful. 
Those are not peaches, they are wild turnips." 
Wild turnips sting the mouth as severely as red 
peppers. Forthwith they expelled the turnips from 
their mouths and called for water, ice, and snow. 
" Look," he said, "at all those gold eagles," pointing 
to a corner. " Ever}' one may have as many as he can 
pick up. " They rushed against and over each other, 
tore one another out of the way, and sprawled upon 
the floor in their efforts to get them. When the 
scramble was the worst, he made a single pass with 
his hand which restored each to his senses. They 
went to their seats, looking as sheepish as possible. 

Then he prepared for the exhibition of tying a 
man in a closet, who played on the banjo and went 
through other performances too common to require 
description. This was followed bj' mind-reading 
and finally by professed communications with the 
spirits. To all which the more intelligent of the 
audience paid little attention. 



74 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

But on the following evening one of his subjects, 
an intelligent young mechanic, described to a party 
of half a dozen gentlemen the vivid reality of his 
sensations. So far as he was concerned, there was 
no deception. Another gentleman declared that the 
spirit of his wife had answered his mental inquiry 
by a fact unknown to him, but which he had since 
learned was true. Then one proposed that we should 
all go and have a private exhibition, which the show- 
man advertised to give. We went, we saw the 
exhibition, and the following is an accurate descrip- 
tion of the audience, the dramatis persona?, and the 
display. 

We were six in number: two doctors — one very 
learned in the Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and Latin, 
as well as the modern languages — two lawyers, a 
clergyman, and the collector of the port. All were 
educated, intelligent gentlemen. 

We went to a small but very respectable boarding- 
house, rang, and asked for the showman by name. 
We were shown into the small, plainly furnished 
" square" room. Soon entered a girl of some eighteen 
years, having every mark of an ignorant, gawky, 
impudent country wench. 

" Do you fellers want a see-ants?" she demanded. 

We had agreed that Dr. H. should be our speaker. 
"We would like to see whatever there is to be seen," 
he civilly replied. 

" Wall, the Perfessor charges a half a dollar a head 
for a private see-ants, " she said. " I'm his meejum. " 

She was assured that the entrance-fee of four shil- 
lings each should be forthcoming. She passed into 
the hall, and as the servant expressed her reply to 
her mistress' call in "A New Home," "we thought 



HYPNOTISM -SPIRITUAL AND OTHER ISMS. 75 

we heard a yell." " Perf essor, " she screamed, "here's 
six gents as wants a see-ants, right off !" 

There was as little that was spiritual in the ap- 
pearance of the Perf essor as in his "meejum." He 
was an uneducated man who had acquired some 
polish by contact with others. He entered, collected 
his half-dollar from each, and proceeded to business. 
A circular table stood in the centre. From this he 
removed the cover and placed seven chairs around 
the table. Except a piano with no cover, the room 
contained no other furniture. We were directed 
to be seated and " jine hands" with the meejum. 

We were all disgusted with the absurdity of the 
performance, when the medium said to the clergyman, 
who sat nearest to her: " Naow don't you tickle my 
hand. If you do I shall giggle right out." We 
were indisposed to speech. In a few minutes the 
girl was apparently asleep. The showman declared 
that he could understand anything said through her 
by the spirits, but she could only communicate with 
a stranger by raps and by spelling out the word. 
Thus one rap meant yes, two raps no, other letters 
being indicated by numbers on cards which were 
distributed to each of us. This apparently slow 
method was used by the medium with great rapidity. 
The raps were very distinct and apparently made 
all over the room — on and under the table, in the 
lamp-shade, on the back of a chair, and in other 
localities. 

" I will now put the medium in communication 
with any one of you," said the showman. "She will 
summon any spirit called for. The spirit will not 
always come, and some that come will not answer." 

I was first put into correspondence with her by tak- 



76 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

ing both her hands, and the showman made some 
passes over us. This done, I mentally invited the spirit 
of a deceased doctor in my father's famil}-. His pres- 
ence was announced by a rap. The serious part of 
the business now began. I asked my questions in an 
audible voice. 

" Are you a spirit?" Answer — " Yes." 

" Whose?" Ans.— " I am Dr. Matthew Cole." 

" Are there any scars upon my person?" Ans. — 
"Yes. Two." 

"Where?" Ans. — " On your right ankle and under 
your left arm." 

"What caused them?" Ans. — " A cut with an axe 
that on your ankle ; an explosion of powder that un- 
der your arm." 

There was not a person in the room but myself 
who could have known these facts. The answers 
were perfectly accurate. Dr. Cole attended me when 
I came near losing my life in my boyhood by the ex- 
plosion of a half-pound paper of powder ignited in 
my pocket by the discharge of a musket. There was 
no fact stated, however, which I did not know. 

The clergyman then took his turn and was put 
into communication with the spirit of his deceased 
wife. As in my own case, questions relating to his 
former settlement, residence, marriage, and other 
events were correctly answered. The clergyman 
then asked whether he had had any differences with a 
member of his former congregation. He was an- 
swered yes, and the full name of the person was 
given. " What was the origin of it?" " An unsigned 
letter which he believed was written by you." 

The clergyman declared that he never knew the 
origin of what came to be a very serious trouble to 



HYPNOTISM— SPIRITUAL AND OTHER ISMS. 77 

him. Now, in the light of well-known facts, he be- 
lieved the answer to be accurate. 

Our learned physician now called for the spirit of 
his brother and he came. He was, when he died, 
professor of the Hebrew and allied languages in a 
German university. After several questions had 
been correctly answered, the doctor said: "Brother, 
it would give me great joy to be convinced that you 
are my brother. Can you make me certain of your 
identity?" 

" I will try," was the response. "I will translate 
for you from the German into the Hebrew tongue 
what is known in our mother tongue as the first verse 
of the 34th chapter of the Second Book of Moses. It 
commences, as you know, 'Und der Herr, sprach zu 

Mou '" "Mein Gott!" interrupted the doctor. 

" This is most wonderful. You are my brother or 
you are Satan. Nothing ever happened to me so 
extraordinary as this !" 

He then explained that his brother differed from 
the authorities in the orthography of the name Moses. 
The Germans wrote it Mose; the French, Moise or 
Moyse. His brother always wrote it Mousse. That 
thought was not in his mind when he asked for the 
proof. It was natural that his brother should have 
selected it to prove his identity. 

We asked that the proposed translation be made. 
The doctor assented and wrote from the raps the 
verse. In English it read thus : " And the Lord 
said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like 
unto the first : and I will write upon these tables the 
words that were in the first tables, which thou brak- 
est." He took from his pocket the Hebrew Penta- 
teuch and compared what he had written from his 



78 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

brother's dictation, and said that the words and 
characters agreed . None of us were Hebrew scholars, 
but we were none the less certain of the accuracy of 
the doctor's statement. 

Striking as was the illustration, it only served to 
confirm an opinion which I have ever since enter- 
tained. In attempting to carry the translations 
farther, we found that the spirits would only trans- 
late for those who knew both tongues. They would 
translate a couplet of Virgil into French or English 
for me, but failed when they tried the Greek, which 
I did not understand. The trials of others met with 
the same fate. No one but the doctor could extract 
from the spirits a translation of one Hebrew character. 

It may be the prevailing opinion that this incident 
is scarcely worth the space given to it. But pray 
consider the spectacle: A coarse, uneducated, and 
very common country girl, under the direction of a 
common showman, translating accurately a portion 
of the Hebrew Bible for a German scholar. It was 
an impressive experience to me, and set my mind at 
rest on some subjects which have much disturbed 
others. That there is a mysterious process by which 
one mind operates upon, influences, and in some cases 
controls another, seems to be incontrovertible. That 
there is any communication between the spirits of 
the dead and the living there is not the first particle 
of satisfactory evidence. 



CHAPTER X. 

"The Beautiful American Nun." 

At the close of the first half of the nineteenth 
century Vermont was an isolated province on the 
northern border of the spiritual kingdom of the 
Catholic bishop of Boston. Too remote for the per- 
sonal supervision of that prelate, he had permitted 
the Rev. Jeremiah O'Callaghan to control it for so 
long a time that he had come to regard his authority 
as equal to that of the head of the church. The 
Reverend Jeremiah was an Irish priest of peculiar 
opinions never entirely in harmony with Catholic 
principles. On account of these he had been com- 
pelled to leave Ireland and had come to this frontier, 
where he could enforce his uncanonical views of 
usury, banking, pew-rent, and monopoly without in- 
terference from any superior authority. Catholicism 
had flourished under, or rather in defiance of, his 
rule; many new churches had been built, much 
valuable real property acquired, the deeds to which 
were taken to "the Reverend Jeremiah O'Callaghan 
and his assigns." 

The new congregations were formed of Canadian- 
French and Irish Catholics in nearly equal numbers. 
All were good Catholics, but in temporal matters they 
were as discordant as the poles of an electric battery. 
Their united action in a congregation would have been 
impracticable under the most judicious management. 

79 



80 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

The combative disposition of the Reverend Jeremiah, 
who usually sided with his countr3 7 men, always in- 
tensified, never reconciled these differences, until they 
produced numerous actions of ejectment, for assaults, 
batteries, and other proceedings disreputable to the 
church and profitable only to members of the legal 
profession. 

These controversies increased in number and in- 
tensity until a very quiet and unassuming priest ap- 
peared upon the scene. This was the Rev. Louis de 
Goesbriand, who brought with him his commission 
as bishop of Vermont, which had been made a new 
Catholic diocese. He was a French Jesuit who 
came to us from some Western city. He frequently 
consulted Hon. E. J. Phelps and myself upon the 
law of conveyances and the methods of compromis- 
ing suits, and impressed us both by his discretion 
and his skill in controlling the passions of angry 
men. He at once transferred the Reverend Jeremiah 
O'Callaghan, whose combativeness increased with 
age, to a church in the beautiful town of Northamp- 
ton, Massachusetts, and in that way removed the 
principal cause of controversy. He separated the 
Canadian-French from the Irish, and impartially 
provided each with churches, schools, and pastors of 
their own nationality. In a few months every Cath- 
olic lawsuit had been settled, the titles to every 
parcel of church property had been brought into con- 
formity with the church regulations, and peace was 
restored to every Catholic congregation in the new 
diocese. 

The discretion and energy of the bishop com- 
mended him to the respect of all good citizens. He 
co-operated with the local authorities in good works, 



"THE BEAUTIFUL AMERICAN NUN." 81 

established excellent schools and gathered into them 
the children of the streets, where they were clothed, 
fed, and trained to respectability. From a* sand- 
stone which up to that time had been unappreciated, 
he built a cathedral in the city of Burlington which 
was a poem in stone, and which has come to be 
known as one of the most beautiful structures in New 
England. Notwithstanding their inherited aversion 
to the Jesuits, the people entertained a sincere re- 
spect for the Catholic bishop of Vermont, and his 
diocese was one of the most orderly and prosperous 
under the jurisdiction of Rome. 

On a visit to Burlington after an absence of some 
years I called upon Bishop de Goesbriand and asked 
to see the interior of his cathedral. He assented cor- 
dially to my request and accompanied me to the 
structure. In his modest way he was pointing out 
some of its novelties, when I noticed a group of 
statuary in wood, which apparently represented some 
mythological subject. To my inquiry what it was 
intended to represent, he answered that he would tell 
me after we had completed our inspection. We 
visited all parts of the cathedral and its grounds, 
finally came to his residence, and entered his library. 
There I claimed the fulfilment of his promise, and 
there he told me the story of the " Beautiful American 
Nun." All its details connected with the sisterhood 
he gave me. Some facts of the early life of the prin- 
cipal character were derived from descendants in the 
family to which she belonged. 

" The group of statuary which you saw in the 
cathedral is an attempt to commemorate the only ac- 
cepted and well-authenticated miracle ever wrought 
within the limits of Vermont. After the war of the 
6 



82 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

Revolution, as you know, General Ethan Allen came 
to reside on the Winooski intervale in this town, 
where he lived at the time of his death. His dwell- 
ing was a farm-house on an unfrequented road, and 
he had no near neighbors. One spring morning 
when his daughter Fanny, aged nine years, was 
gathering wild-flowers on the river's bank, she was 
startled by the sight of a monster which was rushing 
through the water, apparently to devour her. Stricken 
with fear, she was unable to move and utterly help- 
less. Just as the savage beast was about to tear her 
with his ferocious claws, she heard a kind and gentle 
voice saying, 'Have no fear, my daughter, the mon- 
ster has no power over you.' Trustfully raising her 
eyes, she saw standing b} 7 her side an aged man of 
venerable aspect, white hair and beard, wearing a 
long cloak and carrying a long staff in his hand. 
His words reassured the frightened maid ; her fears 
departed and she started for her home. There she 
related her fearful adventure and described the ap- 
pearance of her deliverer. Her father and mother 
immediately went in search of him, but he was 
neither to be found nor heard of. No one had seen 
him along the road where he must have passed ; her 
parents gave up the search, believing that their 
daughter was the victim of her own imagination 
and that no such person existed as she believed she 
had seen. The incident passed from their minds and 
was for the time forgotten. 

All accounts agree upon the piety and loveliness of 
the daughters of Ethan Allen. It was of Fanny 
Allen's elder half-sister that the touching stoiy is 
told of her last interview with her unbelieving 
father. The rough warrior stood by her bedside 



"THE BEAUTIFUL AMERICAN NUN." 83 

holding her emaciated hand. 'My dear father,' she 
said, 'I am about to die; shall I die believing with 
you that there is no heaven, no Jesus, no future life, 
or shall I believe what my mother and her Bible 
have taught me?' The strong man wept bitter tears 
as he replied, 'My child, believe what your mother 
has taught you. ' 

" The years sped on. The hero of Ticonderoga was 
gathered to his fathers, and his lonely wife, after a 
season of mourning, sought protection and comfort 
in the home of her third husband, an eminent physi- 
cian of an adjoining town. Fanny Allen was a 
beautiful girl of seventeen when she left her father's 
home to enter upon a new and very beautiful life 
which you will find recorded in this history." 

The bishop handed me two royal octavo volumes 
in French, which comprised the History of the Hotel 
Dieu convent in Montreal, in which he said I could 
read the subsequent life of Fanny Allen. But I had 
been so charmed with his simple relation that I in- 
sisted upon hearing the account from his own lips. 
His narrative comprised all the facts described in the 
book. From that relation and facts derived from 
other authentic sources I have condensed the sequel 
of the story. 

The remarkable beauty and rare intelligence of 
Fanny Allen appear in every account of her which 
has fallen under my notice. Her mother, whose 
name she bore, a widow at the time of her marriage 
with Colonel Allen, is described as a lady of command- 
ing presence, graceful figure, and a queenly style of 
beauty. The daughter inherited all her mother's 
gifts, united with a sweetness of disposition and a 
confiding manner which charmed every one who 



84 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

knew her. Before her sixteenth birthday she had 
met a student in the then young University of Ver- 
mont. H D was the son of a wealthy 

Boston merchant ; he lived in the family of President 
Sanders, a friend and neighbor of Dr. Penniman, the 
step-father of Miss Allen. He possessed an irre- 
proachable character and was a thorough gentleman 
by birth and education. He loved Fanny Allen with 
all the devotion of a brilliant mind and a pure heart. 
She gave him in return the treasure of her first love. 
They were made for each other. The parents of 
both approved their union. For nearly a year they 

had lived for and loved each other. D was a 

welcome guest in the home of his beloved, and both 
looked somewhat impatiently forward to his gradua- 
tion, when they were to be married and he was to 
enter his father's firm in Boston, where the young 
couple were to reside. The voluntary withdrawal of 
either from the promise of such a future seemed im- 
possible. The love and society of her promised hus- 
band were completely satisfying to Fanny Allen. 
She envied no one, wanted nothing more. The year 
which closed on her eighteenth birthday was a year 
of contentment and unalloyed happiness. 

Miss Allen had received an excellent English 
education, and at this time she conceived an irresis- 
tible desire to acquire the French language. She 
had never experienced it before; now it was more 
powerful than her love. Her mother resisted it at 
first. The French was a useless accomplishment 
which, before the days of railways, ocean steamers, 
and European travel, formed no necessaiy part of 
the education of a young American lady. The long- 
ing of Miss Allen increased when it was resisted. 



"THE BEAUTIFUL AMERICAN NUN." 85 

She became despondent and melancholy; her face 
lost its fresh color. Her friends feared she was go- 
ing into a decline. 

As farther resistance promised to imperil the 
health and possibly the life of his adopted daughter, 
her step-father yielded and her mother accompanied 
her to the city of Montreal in search of a school in 
which the daughter might be taught the French lan- 
guage. Then, as now, the schools in the convents 
bore a deservedly high reputation, and were succes- 
sively visited by the American strangers. Their 
final visit to the convents was to the celebrated sister- 
hood known as the Convent " Hotel Dieu. " They 
entered its chapel, walked up one of the aisles until 
they stood before a large painting near the altar. To 
the mother's amazement, the daughter suddenly fell 
upon her knees, bowed her head in prayerful adora- 
tion, and pointing to a figure in the painting, ex- 
claimed : " There is the man who saved me from the 
monster. " It was the figure of the venerable Joseph, 
the husband of the Virgin, in a large painting of the 
Holy Family. 

Believing that she had been directed hither by a 
divine influence, Miss Allen would listen to no sug- 
gestion of farther inquiry. Her mother left her as a 
scholar in charge of the sisterhood and returned to 
her Vermont home. 

A new life now began for Fanny Allen. Her con- 
duct was irreproachable. She made rapid progress 
in her studies, but they assumed a minor importance. 
She was powerfully impressed by the unselfish piety 
of the sisters who had withdrawn from the world 
and given themselves to the service of the church in 
the conversion of the unbelieving and incidentally to 



86 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

works of mercy and charity. She determined to en- 
ter the sisterhood as soon as her season of probation 
was ended . The grief of her mother over this deci- 
sion could scarcely have been more poignant over her 
death. 

Her mother, her friends, and her lover united their 
efforts to dissuade her from her purpose. In the 
hope of diverting her mind and of awakening her 
interest in worldly things, she was taken from the 
convent into the most fashionable circles of city life, 
where she was qualified to shine and where she at- 
tracted universal admiration. Her affianced lover, 
overwhelmed with grief, made to her the most tender 
and pathetic appeals. He painted the attractions of 
the social life which opened its doors to welcome 
them. He would give her comfort, luxury, position, 
everything that wealth could purchase or her heart 
desire. They would* travel, they would store their 
minds with precious memories of old civilizations. 
Together they would float upon Italian lakes, read 
great poems among the mountains that inspired them. 
They would ascend the Nile, study the beauties of 
the Alhambra, and read the story of the cross on the 
shores of Galilee. Would she become a minister of 
charity? His fortune was hers to bestow. All he 
asked was that he might work beside her, sustain 
her strength, and see generations rise up to call her 
blessed. They had been, they might be so happy in 
each other's love ! He prayed, he implored her not 
to give up a future of so much promise for the re- 
stricted opportunities and prison life within the stony 
walls of a convent cell. 

But Fanny Allen was inflexible. She had the 
energy, decision, and firmness of her father, con- 



"THE BEAUTIFUL AMERICAN NUN." 87 

trolled by the gentleness of a trustful nature. Noth- 
ing could have surpassed the sweetness of her cheer- 
ful acquiescence in the wish of her mother that she 
should enter society. There she seemed to exert 
herself to add to its attractions. She was very 
beautiful ; above the medium height, her complexion 
fair, her eyes dark blue with a singular calmness and 
depth of expression, united to a regal dignity and re- 
pose of manner which made her attractions irresistible 
while they indicated the refinement and loveliness of 
her character. Nor did her first love grow cold. 
Her lover was dearer to. her than ever. It was be- 
cause she loved him so well that she was constrained 
to obey the call of One through whom she hoped to 
secure his eternal welfare. 

In due time Miss Allen, confident of the genuine- 
ness of her conversion to the Catholic faith, returned 
to the convent to prepare for her final withdrawal from 
the world. At a time when so little was known of 
Catholicism in Vermont, this announcement created 
an interest and excitement which the present genera- 
tion cannot appreciate. In the popular ignorance of 
the time "taking the veil," as it was called, was 
regarded as the voluntary suicide of the novice, 
as the suppression, if not the destruction, of a human 
soul. The ceremony was described in the press. The 
gloomy half-light of the chapel filled with mourn- 
ing friends; the funereal tones of the organ; the 
shaven priests ; the angelic beauty of the novice in 
her dress of unstained white; the saddened, sweet 
resignation of her face ; the grief of her last glance 
toward those from whom she was about to part for- 
ever; the final scene when, in the dark robe of her 
order, she fell into keeping with the awful ceremony; 



88 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

the fall of the curtain which was supposed to sepa- 
rate her forever from all she held dear, was thought 
to represent a truthful exhibition, as dreadful and 
almost as cruel as the nameless ceremonies of the 
inquisition. 

But if the information of Bishop de Goesbriand 
was reliable, the blessings which followed the con- 
secration of the beautiful novice more than compen- 
sated every one for their sorrow for her temporal loss. 
She immediately became one of the celebrities of the 
city of Montreal. Her convent was no longer a 
place of seclusion. It was besieged by throngs of 
visitors who would not leave the city until the} T had 
seen "the beautiful American nun." Although she 
brought benefactions to the convent, these numerous 
visitors became not only annojung to her, but she 
was not strong enough to endure the fatigue of re- 
ceiving them. Her Mother Superior at length de- 
cided to refuse to put her upon exhibition, and she 
was permitted to enjoy a season of seclusion. 

After assuming the religious habit she lived only 
eleven years, and came to the end of her beautiful life 
at the age of thirty-five years. These eleven years 
witnessed so many conversions of her relatives and 
acquaintances to the Catholic faith as to establish the 
miraculous character of her own experience. The 
physician who attended her last hours, a Protestant, 
was so touched by her faith that when at the last 
moment her confessor exclaimed, " Come to her as- 
sistance, all ye saints of God, " he fell upon his knees 
and registered a solemn purpose, which was executed 
by leaving his profession, joining the church, and 
entering a religious community. Her intended hus- 
band sold what he had and gave it to the poor and 



•'THE BEAUTIFUL AMERICAN NUN." 89 

himself to the service of the church. The Rev. Mr. 
Barber, who gave Miss Allen the rite of baptism into 
the Episcopal church, at the age of sixty-two years 
became a Catholic — his son and his grandson became 
priests of the Jesuit order and missionaries to the In- 
dians. Her relatives and those who knew her well, 
almost without exception, followed her example ; one 
of them, a clergyman, with his wife were separated 
by a papal decree, in order that the husband might 
become a priest and his wife the lady superior of a 
convent in a Southern city. The incidents of her 
life and the results of her noble influence would fill a 
volume. Indeed, her example has not yet lost its 
power, for many conversions from Protestantism of 
her posterity continue to occur, some of the most 
conspicuous under the ministry of the present bishop 
of Vermont. 

" You do not believe in the Vermont miracle or in 
its marvellous consequences and conversions, but we 
do — we believe them thoroughly," were the sincere 
and artless words with which the good bishop termi- 
nated our interview and the story of " the beautiful 
American nun." 



CHAPTER XI. 
Secretary Chase and his Financial Policy. 

In the judgment of thoughtful men, the Treasury- 
was the weakest portion of the national defences 
during the civil war. Of the courage and patriotism 
of the loyal North and "West there was never any 
doubt. But the soldier cannot fight upon courage 
and patriotism alone. He must be clothed and fed, 
as well as provided with arms and ammunition, 
and these cannot be furnished when the money and 
credit of the Government are exhausted. The rebel 
armies were never destitute of guns, powder, or ball. 
England and some of the Continental powers took 
good care of them in this respect. But toward the 
close of the war, when other supplies were exhausted, 
the military strength of the South rapidl}* weakened. 
Exposure and want of tents, clothing, and proper food 
were as damaging to the South as any powerful rein- 
forcement of the Northern armies. 

The management of Secretary Cobb had thoroughly 
depleted the Treasury : he had spared no efforts to 
accomplish this result. On the 4th of March, 1861, 
there was not money enough left in its vaults to pay 
for the daily consumption of stationeiy; no city 
dealer would furnish it on credit. When Secretary 
Chase entered upon his duties, the most thorough 
search was made to find something that could be 
turned into money. It was suggested that the sur- 
plus revenue which had been loaned to the States 
90 



SECRETARY CHASE AND HIS POLICY. 01 

might be collected. But of the obligations for its 
return executed by the slaveholding States, every one 
had m} T steriously disappeared, and that subject was 
laid aside. No authority for the issue of Treasuiy 
notes existed; the prospect of raising money was as 
remote as could be imagined. 

The last Congress had authorized a small loan, at 
six per cent interest, payable in gold coin. Secretary 
Cobb had offered it; the whole amount had been 
taken, the subscribers depositing the customary one 
per cent as a guarantee that the remaining paymen Is 
would be made. The Secretary had so frequently 
and so confidently predicted the dissolution of the 
Union, and that the loan would never be paid, that 
some of the subscribers in Washington and the South 
declined to make good their subscriptions and for- 
feited their guarantee. The amount not taken was 
about $0,000,000. This amount was available if 
subscribers for it could be obtained. 

This balance was accordingly advertised in the 
usual manner. It was announced that on an ap- 
pointed day proposals for it would be received, 
opened, and considered by the Secretary. 

When the day arrived there were so few offers for 
it that the Secretary decided to postpone opening the 
bids and to advertise for proposals a second time. 
It was in this connection that I first heard the word 
" syndicate " in relation to a financial transaction. 
Mr. Jay Cooke, a personal friend of the Secretary, 
came to Washington from Ohio, and proposed that all 
loyal Republicans should form " sjmdicates" to sub- 
scribe for this loan. Such syndicates were formed 
and the subscription was considerably increased 
thereby. 



92 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

That was a memorable day on which the bids 
were opened. Three persons were present: the 
Secretary, one of his assistants, and the Register. 
The Assistant Secretary opened and read the bids — ■ 
the Register recorded them. There were a few offers 
for small amounts, as high as ninety-five ; the offers 
of the syndicates were about ninety. Then the bids 
fell off — some of them were as low as forty. Think 
of it ! Four hundred dollars offered for a bond of the 
United States, at six per cent interest, payable in 
gold coin, for one thousand dollars ! The defeats at 
Bull Run were not so disheartening to the Treasury 
officers who comprehended the situation as the sum- 
ming up of these unpatriotic offers. 

No word broke the silence while the Register was 
adding up and averaging the offers. When this was 
done he inquired : 

" Well, what is to be done?" 

" Have you any suggestion?" asked the Secretary. 

"I have," said the Register. "A little money we 
must have. There are between three and four mill- 
ions bid for at eighty-five and above. I suggest that 
these offers be accepted." 

"Very well," responded the Secretary. " Let the 
notices be given." 

"But what then?" pursued the Register. "Our 
liabilities are accruing at the rate of $2,000,000 daily. 
The proceeds of this loan will not pay them for more 
than forty-eight hours. Is the Treasury to suspend 
payment?" 

The Secretary was seated at the table, upon which 
his elbow rested; his massive head was supported 
upon his opened palm. His countenance wore a look 
of weary depression. Suddenly he started, raised 



SECRETARY CHASE AND HIS POLICY. 93 

his head, and the look of depression was followed by 
one of determination, almost fierce in its intensity. 

" What then?" he exclaimed, " is a serious question. 
It is less difficult to say what we will not than what 
we will do. We will not try this method of raising 
money farther! Let this loan and these books be 
closed !" 

At this point he rose and stood upon his feet. 
Erect, he was a model of strength and dignity — the 
finest man in carriage and appearance in the nation. 
Scarcely raising his voice, the words fell from his 
lips like a decree from the throne of an omnipotent 
monarch : 

" There is money enough in the loyal North and 
West to pay for suppressing this wicked rebellion. 
The people are willing to loan it to their Government. 
If we cannot find the way to their hearts, we should 
resign and give place to those who can. I am going 
to the people ! If there is a farmer at the country 
cross-roads who has ten dollars which he is willing 
to loan to the Government, he shall be furnished with 
a Treasury obligation for it, without commission or 
other expense. When we have opened the way di- 
rectly to the people and they fail to respond to the 
calls of their Government in the stress of civil war, 
we may begin to despair of the republic!" With 
these words ringing in our ears, the conference ended. 

This expression disclosed the source of the financial 
strength of Secretary Chase. His confidence in the 
people was absolutely supreme ; it never for a moment 
wavered. He saw himself, and he could make 
others, even an assembly of bank presidents, see that 
their possessions were worthless unless the Treasury, 
a synonym in his mind for the Government, was 



94 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

sustained. But lie addressed no such selfish argu- 
ments to the masses. The}' knew that it was their 
duty to support the Government with their lives — 
much more with their monej T . The plan of dealing 
with them directly was the strongest that could pos- 
sibly have been devised. 

Able as the Secretary was, it would be erroneous 
to assume that his financial policy, which culminated 
in "An Act to Establish a National Currency," was 
struck out at a sitting, and came from him perfect, 
like Minerva from the front of Jove. It was the 
subject of growth and development, enlarging with 
the necessities of the country and always adequate 
to its relief. A rapid sketch of this growth, as 
shown by the successive acts of Congress, may not 
here be out of place. 

The extra session of July 4th, 1 801, was called when 
there was in the Cabinet more than one believer in 
the suppression of the rebellion within sixty days. 
The Secretaiy was confident that its suppression 
would not involve an} T permanent disturbance of the 
financial institutions or systems then in existence. 
Accordingly the first loan act of July 17th, 1861, 
comprised important provisions, which were never 
used and were soon abandoned. 

This act authorized the Secretary to borrow not 
more than $250,000,000, and to issue bonds bearing 
seven per cent and Treasury notes bearing interest at 
the rate of seven and three-tenths per cent, the latter 
popularly known as the "seven-thirty notes." He 
was authorized to issue not more than fifty millions 
of dollars in Treasury notes, bearing no interest and 
payable on demand. These "demand notes" were 
made receivable for all public dues, including duties 



SECRETARY CHASE AND HIS POLICY. 95 

on imports, and were convertible into other notes 
bearing interest at the rate of 3.65 per cent per annum. 
The defeat at Bull Run on the 21st of July led to the 
passage of the act of August 5th, which authorized 
the conversion of the "seven-thirties" into bonds 
bearing six per cent interest ; another act of the same 
date increasing the duties on imports, and another 
imposing a tax upon real estate and incomes, con- 
stituted the financial legislation of the extra session. 

The " demand notes" were immediately issued, and 
there were small issues of the other Treasury notes au- 
thorized. But there were no conversions into bonds 
under these acts. The second or December session of 
the Thirty-seventh Congress was approaching; the 
necessity for an increased issue of notes for general 
circulation became apparent, and the Secretary turned 
his attention to the new measures demanded by these 
necessities. 

The first loan act of the December session pro- 
vided for the issue of one hundred and fifty millions 
in non-interest-bearing Treasury notes, constituting 
the first issue of those popularly known as " green- 
backs." Fifty millions of these were to take the 
place of the "demand notes," which it was deter- 
mined should be withdrawn from circulation. They 
were receivable for customs duties and took the place 
of so much gold. They commanded a premium 
nearly equal to that of gold. The new issue of 
$150,000,000 were receivable for all" public dues ex- 
cept duties on imports. This act authorized 'the 
funding of all outstanding Treasury notes, together 
with any part of the floating debt, into six per cent 
bonds, to the amount of $500,000,000, bearing six per 
cent interest, redeemable at the pleasure of the 



06 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

United States at any time after five and payable in 
twenty years. These were the well-known "five- 
twenties" of 1881. The act of March 1st, 18G2, au- 
thorized the issue of certificates of indebtedness, 
payable in one year, with six per cent interest, to 
any public creditor. An act of July 11th, 1862, in- 
creased the issue of greenbacks $150,000,000, making 
the whole issue $300,000,000. The duties on im- 
ports were again increased. The internal revenue 
system was created, and these acts comprised the 
financial legislation of the Thirty-seventh Congress. 

While these acts created a large additional revenue 
and increased the authorized funding of the debt by 
nearly eight hundred million dollars, they were ob- 
viously inadequate to the necessities of the situation. 
Secretary Chase foresaw, before the Thirty-seventh 
Congress closed, that the Government credit could 
not be sustained unless more thorough and permanent 
measures were adopted which should close the State 
banks and create a national currency secured by the 
bonds of the United States. He was aware that such 
a measure would encounter the powerful combined 
opposition of the existing banks ; that its expediency 
would be questioned and its necessity denied. But 
he clearly anticipated its beneficial influence upon 
the country, and that it would eventually become the 
crowning glory of his financial administration. He 
therefore made no secret of its purposes and proposed 
operation, and addressed all the powers of his mind 
to its perfection and passage. 

While the bill was before the House of Represen- 
tatives, Hon. Brutus J. Clay, a loyal, conservative 
member of the House from Kentucky, himself a 
banker, called at the Treasury to show the Secretary 



SECRETARY CHASE AND HIS POLICY. 97 

that he ought to consent to a reduction of the pro- 
posed tax upon the circulation of the State banks. 
He argued that the tax was greater than the average 
profit on the circulation, and demonstrated that the 
circulation would inevitably be withdrawn. The 
Secretary admitted the force of his argument, but 
declined to consent to any reduction of the tax. Dis- 
appointed and somewhat irritated, Mr. Clay ex- 
claimed, " Why, Mr. Secretary, you act as if it were 
your purpose to destroy the State banks !" " My own 
purpose is unimportant, but I am of opinion that the 
act justifies your criticism, and that such a purpose 
ma}' be inferred from some of its provisions," ob- 
served the Secretary. Mr. Clay was almost speech- 
less with astonishment. He rose from his seat, clasped 
his hands above his head, and left the office, exclaim- 
ing, " My God ! My God !" It was clear to the Secretary 
that the two systems could not co-exist — that one or 
the other must give way. Justice to Mr. Clay requires 
me to say that he became a firm supporter of the bill. 

No fewer than a score of men have claimed to be 
the originators of the " Act to Provide for a National 
Currency." The list comprises bankers, lawyers, 
gentlemen of leisure, and at least one clergyman. 
Far be it from me to intimate that all these gentle- 
men are not entitled to all the laurels they claim. I 
would sooner take the part of one of the cities claim- 
ing to be the birthplace of Homer. But we who were 
in the Treasury and who had discussed all the impor- 
tant clauses with the Secretary and each other must 
be excused if we adhere rather firmly to the opinion 
that the real author of the bill was Secretary Chase. 

The manner in which the important sections of 
this bill were perfected shows the great ability of 
7 



98 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

the man and his superiority to any feeling of per- 
sonal jealousy. There is no doubt whatever that he 
submitted the bill to every person he knew or heard 
of who could improve it by his criticisms or sug- 
gestions. Himself one of the best lawyers in the 
nation, whose facility of expression rendered his 
business letters models of English composition, he 
would not trust himself to perfect this bill. After 
it had been improved as much as possible in his own 
department, he one day asked the head of one of his 
bureaus who was the best lawyer to remove from 
the bill all the clauses of doubtful interpretation. 
The name of an eminent Senator was suggested, but 
it was mentioned as an objection to him that his 
great experience was associated with an unyield- 
ing obstinacy of opinion, that his views of "legal 
tender" differed from those of the Secretary, that he 
would insist upon their application to an act intended 
to survive all military necessities, and that instead 
of perfecting the bill he would eliminate from it 
everything which did not conform to his views. 
Judge Collamer was well known to the Secretary. 
He recognized his fitness for the work, declined to 
listen to the objections, but invited him to the Treas- 
ury, where he spent several weeks in close, intel- 
ligent, and most judicious labor upon the bank act. 
Judge Collamer might well claim the authorship of 
many of its provisions. . But it never occurred to him 
nor to any officer of the Treasury to attribute the origin 
of this bill to any other than Secretary Chase. The 
removal of the prejudices of the bankers, their ac- 
ceptance of and their organization under it, was 
largely the work of Hon. Hugh McCulloch, the first 
Comptroller of the Currency. 



SECRETARY CHASE AND HIS POLICY. 99 

Considerable time elapsed after the passage of the 
"Act to Provide a National Currency" before the 
first national bank under its provisions was organ- 
ized. The officers of the State banks, who had 
generally managed them with safety to the public 
and credit to themselves, were naturally averse to 
an} T change and unwilling to concede that any bet- 
ter system could be devised, especially by a Secretary 
who, although he had established his reputation as a 
great financier, had no experience in the practical 
business of banking. The bank presidents of the 
principal cities, in making previous loans to the Gov- 
ernment, had become accustomed to act together, and 
there was some evidence of an organized resistance 
on their part to the national-bank act. They did not 
believe it could be set in motion without their co- 
operation. 

In this opinion they were mistaken. The first im- 
pulse was 'given to the new system by a New Yorker 
who was quite outside their powerful financial circle. 
The " First National Bank" was organized by Mr. 
John Thompson. It had a moderate capital and no 
business except such as itself created. It was by the 
act entitled to become one of the depositories of the 
Treasury moneys, and to other privileges having a 
pecuniary value, from which the State banks were 
excluded. These advantages immediately demon- 
strated that banking under the national act might be 
made very profitable, and resistance to it on the 
ground of prejudice could not long be maintained 
when it involved a pecuniar}" loss. The alternative 
was presented to the bank officers of banking under 
the old system at a loss or under the new at a profit. 
Their prejudices began to give way, and as soon as 



100 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

one or two of the State banks had decided to make 
the change, all the others were so ready to follow 
that it was simply a question which could get into 
the national system first. In a few weeks opposition 
to it from the old banks had disappeared. 

The wise and conservative administration of the 
act by Mr. McCulloch, the first Comptroller of the 
Currency, was most efficient in removing all objec- 
tions of the State-bank officers; and the readiness 
with which Secretary Chase accepted suggestions 
for amendments made friends of many who would 
otherwise have been its enemies. It was at first in- 
tended that the national banks should be numbered 
consecutively in order of their organization, and that 
the former names of the State banks should be wholly 
suppressed. The suggestion that these banks should 
be permitted to retain the old and honorable titles 
was made by Mr. Patterson, one of the oldest and 
most experienced bank presidents of Philadelphia. 
The value of this suggestion was immediately recog- 
nized by the Secretary and the Comptroller, and it was 
adopted. Its effect was equivalent to a retention by 
the old banks of the " trade-marks" of their business. 
Thus, for example, the "Chemical Bank," which 
would have become possibly the " Nine hundred and 
seventh National Bank," under Mr. Patterson's sug- 
gestion became the " Chemical National Bank." The 
change was so slight that it preserved whatever of ad- 
vantage was associated with an old and honorable 
name. The influence of this change was very great; 
in fact, it seemed to remove the last prejudice against 
the national system, which, tested b} 7 an experience of 
twenty-five years, has proved to be the best, safest, and 
most satisfactory known to the history of banking. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Some Notes about Birds — A Lesson in En- 
gineers i . 

I hope no reader will turn away contemptuously 
from this chapter because he assumes that the subject 
is unworthy of men who have to deal with the seri- 
ous concerns of life. I have never had much time to 
throw away, but I have spent a good many days 
with our common birds, and a much larger number 
with men, infinitely less to my profit and pleasure. 

If he hopes to gain the confidence of the public, no 
writer of political literature should fail to acquaint 
himself with the elements of natural history. I 
have in mind a very delightful author, eminent as a 
poet, a statesman, a diplomatist, and a historian, yet 
because of his gross perversion of ornithological facts 
I cannot read anything that he has written with any 
pleasure or give credit to facts upon his unconfirmed 
evidence. One who describes humming-birds per- 
ishing in a snow-storm, the robins pairing in mid- 
winter, the crows nesting in the evergreens around 
his garden, will never gain the confidence of the nat- 
uralist. When he affirms that the blue-jays unravelled 
an old carpet for the materials for their nest built in 
his fruit-trees, and that the parent birds looked on 
with silent admiration while he amputated the limb 
of one of their young, broken by being entangled in 
one of the strings woven into their nest, he taxes our 

101 



102 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

credulity quite as heavily as old Sir John Maunde- 
ville when he declares that " the Ravenes and Crowes, 
everyche of hem bringethe in here bekes a braunche 
of olive, of the whiche the monkes maken gret plentee 
of Oyle to feed the lampes in the Chirche of Seynte 
Kateryne," a fact which he solemnly declares is "the 
myracle of God and a gret marvaylle." The hum- 
ming-bird never comes to us until the honeysuckle is 
in flower, the male robin precedes the female by some 
weeks in its spring migration, and every tyro knows 
that in New England the corvidce are the most 
secretive of birds in their nesting and incubation. 
The nest of the common crow, always in the thick 
boughs of the lofty pine or hemlock, is seldom found 
until it is betrayed by the hoarse cawing of the 3 T oung ; 
the egg of that very common bird, the Canada ja} T , 
was unknown to science until 1859, and no nest of a 
New England bird is more difficult of discovery than 
that of the blue-jay. It is to be found only in some 
ravine in the depths of the forest where the thick tops 
of the evergreens effectually screen it from human 
observation. When found, like all the nests' of the 
genus, it is formed exclusively of dried twigs, with 
no spear of grass or anything but woody roots and 
twigs in its construction. No improbabilit}' could 
surpass the story of the young jay losing its leg by 
becoming entangled in a string, except that of the 
nest being made from the ravellings of an old carpet 
hanging in a flower-garden ! 

The bine-jay is one of those birds that change their 
habits with their locality. In New England they 
are never seen in flocks and seldom more than a pair 
are seen together. In the Southern States, where 
they winter, they collect in flocks, and their watch- 



SOME NOTES ABOUT BIRDS. 103 

fulness for every grain of rice or corn makes them 
the pest of the plantation. Those which remain 
there do not lose their attachment for human society, 
and are said to nest and rear their young near the 
houses of the planters. 

Do the birds reason? Do they know when it is 
necessary to protect themselves and their young 
against man and the lower animals and when it is 
not? I will not attempt a comprehensive answer to 
these questions. I will state some facts which will 
be interesting, and I know that they are credible. 

The crows are a knowing family. They com- 
prise the ravens, the magpies, the common crows, 
and the jays. The raven lives in the depths of the 
forest or on the shores of our solitary lakes in the si- 
lent wilderness. Why men pursue him to death it is 
bootless to inquire. Under no circumstances does 
he ever cultivate or injure human society. The 
crow is a very common bird and is, as his wants de- 
mand, a pest and a blessing. In the winter of 1862, 
when in the vicinity of Washington the unaccli- 
mated horses and cattle died by thousands, I used to 
welcome the mighty army of black-winged scaven- 
gers that devoured the carrion and protected us 
against epidemics. But every New England farmer's 
boy knows what a pest they are to the newly planted 
corn-fields and has had some opportunity to study 
their predatory habits. They never raid the sprout- 
ing grains without first placing on the lookout an ex- 
perienced veteran, who never fails to give loud warn- 
ing of the approach of any danger. If the farmer 
is unarmed and the crows are hungry, he may 
approach within a very few yards before they take 
flight. But let him bear upon his shoulder an old 



104 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

Springfield musket or other fire-arm not dangerous 
to be handled, and the alert sentinel will not suffer 
him to come within a fourth of a mile of one of his 
family. Their affection for their young alone ren- 
ders them insensible to danger. Capture a young 
crow and make him cry out, and every other one 
within hearing will come to his assistance. The 
sport of shooting them under these circumstances 
was always too cruel for me to engage in, even 
against such a notorious marauder. 

The blue-jay is as knowing a bird as his congeners, 
the magpie and the crow. In the Southern States, as 
I have said, he lives in flocks near human dwellings. 
In the Middle States he is more retiring and not 
inclined to human society. In New England he is a 
solitary bird, and in pairs seeks the depths of the 
forest, where he is as difficult of approach as the 
common crow. He is omnivorous and savage enough 
to attack and destroy a wounded bird or animal 
much larger than himself ; he can make his neigh- 
borhood very uncomfortable for the smaller preda- 
ceous animals. 

Wilson, one of the most delightful of writers, com- 
mences his ornithology with a sketch of the habits of 
the blue-jay. I will add to his most entertaining 
account a few observations of my own. There was 
upon our homestead farm an extensive wood of the 
first growth. There were hills covered with pines, 
hemlocks, and other evergreens, plains of sugar- 
maples and beeches, and on its three hundred or 
more acres grew almost every New England tree and 
shrub. The crows and jays nested in the evergreens, 
the myrtle-bird and thrushes in the groves of decid- 
uous trees, and many species of natural enemies 



SOME NOTES ABOUT BIEDS. 105 

seemed to live together as a happy family. On one 
occasion I noticed a pair of jays screaming in imita- 
tion of a sparrow-hawk, with butcher-birds and sev- 
eral other species, all pursuing some animal running 
on the ground in the edge of a cleared field. A hawk 
made a descent, as I supposed, to strike one of the 
birds, but when he rose in a graceful curve I saw 
writhing in his talons the weasel which the birds 
had been pursuing. Later I saw an owl and finally 
a mother fox pursued by the same winged hunters. 
I could not avoid the conclusion that these birds of 
different species, so unlike each other, had banded to- 
gether for their mutual defence, which they were 
successfully maintaining. Although I was unable 
to discover the nest, the young family of jays in due 
time appeared and grew to maturity. 

The ruffed grouse, or, as it is commonly known in 
New England, the partridge, sometimes exhibited 
an intelligence almost and a pride more than human. 
In the wood I have mentioned there was a fallen 
tree, and I had discovered an opening through the 
branches where its whole length was visible. This 
fallen tree was the throne of one of the proudest birds 
that ever existed — the drumming-log of Mr. Tetrao 
Umbellus. With his tail, marked with transverse 
bars of black, expanded, his wings drooping, the tufts 
on his neck elevated, he marched along his log as 
stately as a male turkey, a peacock, or a drum-major. 
At the end he turned about and struck his stiffened 
wings together over his back, slowly at first, the 
strokes increasing in rapidity until they ran together, 
producing that drumming sound which so frequently 
attracts the pot-hunter and costs the musician its life. 
I watched this exhibition for hours, his performance 



106 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

being varied at times by affectionate endearments to 
the female under the log, where, with wings greatly 
expanded so as to cover a score of eggs, Mrs. 
Tetrao patiently incubated. Without disturbing, 
I watched her closely until she left the nest and, with 
soft duckings, kept her peeping, fuzzy young ones 
within the shadow of her maternal wings. Then I 
thought it would be interesting to capture two or 
three of the young. I may tax the reader's credulity, 
but I must ask him to believe this story. There was 
an open wood-road leading away from the log. All 
else was a thicket. The moment I appeared near the 
log the mother limped a few yards down this open 
road, and then, with drooping wings, fell apparently 
helpless on the ground. I ran to pick her up; she 
rolled over and over several times, always just be- 
yond my reach. I continued the pursuit a dozen 
yards or more, when she deliberately rose from her 
helpless condition on the ground and gracefully sailed 
away into the forest. I hurried back to the aban- 
doned nest, but no young one was to be found. 
They too had betaken themselves to the covert, with 
sense enough not to betray themselves by a sound. 
If this was not the act of a reasoning mother to pro- 
tect her young by drawing me away from them, it 
was certainly an excellent imitation of the reasoning 
faculty. 

The blooded setter readily follows the game-bird by 
its scent, as every true sportsman knows. Has the 
bird the power of withholding or suppressing its 
scent? I will answer by an experience of my own, to 
which, if required, I could call a living witness. 

We were shooting over "Bang," an Irish setter 
with as fine a nose as was ever carried by any animal 



SOME NOTES ABOUT BIRDS. 107 

with four or a less number of feet. It was a morning 
for English snipe. We had picked up a few individ- 
uals, one at a time, when we reached a narrow marsh 
near the mouth of the Winooski River, where, if 
anywhere, scolopax gallinggo was to be found. At 
the lower end we sent in the dog and followed within 
shot. I firmly believe the dog quartered every square 
yard of that ground without finding a trace of a bird. 
We were about leaving it, when at the extreme up- 
per end the dog turned in the opposite direction and 
immediately flushed three birds. Two of them fell, 
but the third was missed. Instead of moving off in 
his usual zig-zag flight and alighting, he ascended 
in a circular movement, uttering his feeble squeak. 
Before we had charged our muzzle-loaders the snipe 
began to spring up from the very ground over which 
we had walked, moving in similar circles until there 
were as many as a dozen in the air. We brought 
down two, when the others at a lofty elevation started 
southward, and gathering in a flock disappeared from 
our sight. Not a bird was left on the marsh. If 
these birds did not suppress their scent, how did it 
happen that the dog passed them until he turned to 
hunt in the opposite direction? 

Where, tell me where, has columba migrator ia 
gone? I have no need to describe the immense flights 
of passenger-pigeons which darkened the sky and 
made a sound of thunder in Kentucky and Ohio, one of 
them estimated by Mr. Audubon to comprise one bill- 
ion one hundred and fifteen million individuals. In 
my boyhood they nested in the second growth of pines 
near our homestead, where I have picked up of a 
morning as many fat squabs as I could carry. We 
had to watch closely to protect the ripening fields of 



108 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

wheat and rye from their depredations. There was 
no other species of bird half so numerous. 

I speak of them here to record an incident. In 
1890 I was driving with a friend near Burlington, Vt. 
Our conversation was of the passenger-pigeon, and 
he had just informed me that he had not met with 
an individual in several years. We were then pass- 
ing a field from which the crop of buckwheat had 
just been harvested. I observed to him that thirty 
years before I had killed pigeons on that field — many 
of them ; that they were numerous there after the 
crops were harvested and were careful gleaners. My 
friend was telling me how complete their disappear- 
ance was overall our hunting-grounds of thirt} T }'ears 
before, when six birds of the species alighted on a 
dead tree in the middle of the field! Three were 
males with the lively red color on their breasts and 
the long pointed tail and upper parts of cerulean hue 
which always made them so graceful and attractive. 
They were almost the last of their race in New 
England. 

It was the opinion of that veteran observer, Mr. 
Audubon, that the passenger-pigeon was capable of a 
sustained flight of several hours at the rate of a mile 
per minute. Of our American birds, only the swal- 
low family have been endowed with greater activit}' 
and rapidity. I know of no living creature which 
either of our genuine swallows cannot give time to 
and defeat in a race. For two or three spring days 
in each year there is an exhibition of the poetry of 
flight over the surface of either of the lakes in the 
New York Central Park. It is given by one of the 
most beautiful members of the family — the green- 
blue or white-bellied swallow. They have been 



SOME NOTES ABOUT BIEDS. 109 

mated and are on their bridal journey. The insect 
life on these lakes is attractive to them, but they rest 
and recruit here for two or three days only. In the 
early morning there will be some thousands where 
there were none the preceding sunset. Always ap- 
parently on the wing, describing all manner of 
circles, curves, straight and irregular lines, yet never 
colliding with each other or with any stationary ob- 
ject, when or where they sleep I cannot tell, for I 
have never seen one at rest. The males are quarrel- 
some and fight battles in the air. Suddenly a com- 
mon impulse seizes them — they disappear, not to be 
seen again until another spring. 

The habits of the barn swallow have given to 
that common summer visitant a singular reputation 
among the unlearned. They come and go so sud- 
denly, with no advance agent or stragglers, that they 
are by many supposed to betake themselves to the 
soft mud in the bottom of the ponds, where they 
hibernate until their reappearance in new and glossy 
plumage in the spring. Like some half-human ani- 
mals, they prefer to sleep closely packed together in a 
lodging-house. All the swallows in the locality hang 
themselves up in the inside of a hollow tree for their 
night's repose. After serving as the lodging of 
many generations the tree is cut down or falls, dis- 
closing a mass of feathers and exuviae, with a few 
skeletons of birds that lost their lives there. 
Straightway it is announced that the place where 
the swallows winter has been discovered and de- 
stroyed. 

An incident in my own experience illustrates the 
very social habits of this graceful bird. I had had 
excellent sport with that noble game fighter, the 



110 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

black bass, around a small island of a few acres in 
Lake Champlain, east of Grand Isle, and determined 
to put up my tent and pass the night there. Except 
a few open spaces covered by a soft moss more than 
twelve inches thick, the surface was covered with 
red cedars, none more than a dozen feet in height, 
with lateral branches so interlaced that it was diffi- 
cult to move among them. There was not apparently 
any animal or bird to be seen. 

As the sun approached the horizon a few swallows 
came and alighted in the cedar branches, then more 
swallows, and still more until flocks of many hun- 
dred, coming from every point of the compass, were 
converging upon the island. They kept coming 
while the daylight faded into darkness. Their noisy 
chattering increased with every fresh arrival. I 
fancied that those who retired early and were com- 
fortably settled for the night objected to being 
crowded upon their branches by the late arrivals. 
My supper was prepared and served to the accom- 
paniment of innumerable angry but musical voices. 

After some time the disputes appeared to be ad- 
justed and there was a profound quiet, only broken 
here and there by some individual apparently talking 
in his sleep or disturbed by the nightmare. Then, 
making as little disturbance as possible, I forced 
myself under the branches, well into the grove, dis- 
turbing many sleepers in my progress. I felt that 
I was surrounded by life. Raising my hand to a 
branch, I discovered that the swallows were literally 
packed along it side by side. By striking successive 
matches I saw that every branch in view was laden 
in the same manner. The light seemed to awaken 
them for a moment, but they fell asleep again as 



SOME NOTES ABOUT BIRDS. Ill 

soon as it was extinguished. I could have captured 
scores within reach of my hand, but I would not dis- 
turb these innocent creatures which had selected for 
their nightly repose what they supposed to be the 
security of an uninhabited island. 

As the gray dawn was creeping over the eastern 
mountains there was a clear-ringing, silvery note 
from one of the tallest cedars in the grove. It was 
the reveille. There was an answering note, then 
another, then many, and in a minute the grove was 
alive with voices. They were not the weary, com- 
plaining notes of the evening, but they were full of 
life and animation. There had been disputes, now 
there were voices in council. They were not pro- 
tracted. As the first rays of the morning leaped sky- 
ward, touching the rock face of Mansfield with their 
golden splendor, a single swallow shot out from the 
grove and made one circuit sounding its call. Others 
followed until a small flock was collected, which 
moved westward over ten miles of water to the shore. 
Others followed, collecting in separate flocks and 
taking flight in different directions. "Within five 
minutes the last swallow had departed and solitude 
reigned in the island. 

There are mechanical engineers among the birds, 
and one of the most practical is a member of the 
swallow family, as the following incident will prove. 
Between the Winooski Valley and Lake Champlain, 
north of the city of Burlington, lies a broad sand 
plain high above the lake level, through which the 
Central Railroad was to be carried in a tunnel. But 
the sand was destitute of moisture or cohesiveness, 
and the engineers, after expending a large sum of 
money, decided that the tunnel could not be con- 



112 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

structed because there were -no means of sustaining 
the materia] during the building of the masonry. 
The removal of so large a quantity of material from 
a cut of such dimensions also involved an expense 
that was prohibitory. The route was consequently 
given up and the road built in a crooked ravine 
through the centre of the city, involving ascending 
and descending grades of more than one hundred 
and thirty feet to the mile. When the railroad was 
opened these grades were found to involve a cost 
which practically drove the through freights to a 
competing railroad. 

There was at the time a young man in the en- 
gineers' office of the railroad who said that he could 
tunnel the sand-bank at a very small cost. He was 
summoned before the managers and questioned. 
"Yes," he said, modestly, "I can build the tunnel for 
so many dollars per running foot, but I cannot expect 
you to act upon my opinion when so many American 
and European engineers have declared the project 
impracticable." The managers knew that the first 
fifty feet of the tunnel involved all the difficulties. 
They offered him and he accepted a contract to build 
Mty feet of the structure. 

His plan was simplicity itself. On a vertical face 
of the bank he marked the line of an arch larger 
than the tunnel. On this line he drove into the 
bank sharpened timbers, twelve feet long, three by 
four inches square. Then he removed six feet of 
the material and drove in another arch of twelve-foot 
timbers, removing six feet more of sand, repeating 
this process until he had space enough to commence 
the masonry. As fast as this was completed the 
space above it was filled, leaving the timbers in place. 



SOME NOTES ABOUT BIRDS. 113 

Thus he progressed, keeping the masonry well up to 
the excavation, until he had pierced the bank with 
the cheapest tunnel ever constructed, which has car- 
ried the traffic of a great railroad for thirty years, 
and now stands as firm as on the day of its comple- 
tion. 

The engineer was asked if there was any sugges- 
tion of the structure adopted by him in the books on 
engineering. " No," he said ; " it came to me in this 
way. I was driving by the place where the first 
attempts were made, of which a colony of bank- 
swallows had taken possession. It occurred to me 
that these little engineers had disproved the assertion 
that this material had no cohesion. They have their 
homes in it, where they raise two families every 
summer. Every home is a tunnel, self-sustaining 
without masonry. A larger tunnel can be con- 
structed by simply extending the principle. This is 
the whole story. The bank-swallow is the inventor 
of this form of tunnel construction. I am simply a 
copyist — his imitator." 

There are fine points in animal engineering. Like 
those of the ants and the timber-eating beetles of the 
tropics, or the calamitas navium or ship-worm of 
Linnseus, the excavations of the bank-swallow never 
trespass upon each other, however numerous or prox- 
imate they may be. They are separate, though some- 
times the partitions are little thicker than paper. 
This swallow is a cosmopolitan. He lives upon all 
the continents, in all the hemispheres, from the equa- 
tor to the ice-bound shores crossed by the 68th de- 
gree of latitude. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Judge Lynch — An Incident op Early Pacific 
Railroad Travel. 

The train for San Francisco was standing in the 
Omaha station awaiting the transfer of the passen- 
gers, luggage, and the mails from the East. I stood 
before the window of a telegraph office writing a 
dispatch, when a rather roughly clad person of un- 
prepossessing appearance said to me : 

" Neighbor, would you mind writin' one of them 
telegrafts for me?" 

"Not at all," I said, "if you will dictate it." 

" Oh, yes !" he exclaimed, " I'll pay the shot ; I ain't 
no sponge !" 

" I mean," I said, "that I will write it if you will 
tell me what you wish to have written." 

" Sartain !" he replied, scratching his head as if 
reflecting. Then after a moment he said : " Write — 
'On the train, four o'clock, in Omaha. We've got 
him !' " 

" But no one can understand such a dispatch. 
To whom is it to be sent? Whom have you got? 
What name shall be signed to it?" 

" Send it to the boys. They will know who it 
comes from. Oh, they will understand it." 

"The message cannot be sent unless you name 
some place." 

"Yes, thet's so! Well, tell the ticker sharp to 
114 



JUDGE LYNCH. 115 

send it to Evanston, Echo, Green River, any of them 
places along there, just as he likes. " 

Finding that I had an original to deal with, and 
in order to make him solely responsible, I said : " I 
will write whatever j t ou say. Now begin !" 

"All right!" he exclaimed. "Now I will give it 
to you straight. Write !" And I wrote as follows : 

"To the Boys. We're on the train in Omaha. 
It's four o'clock. We've got him." 

"Tell the ticker chap to send it to Evanston." 

He handed the message to the operator, offering 
him two prices if he would "crack her right along," 
thanked me, entered the smoking-car, and the train 
rolled away. 

I arranged my section for the long ride and went 
forward. In the small room in the smoker were four 
men. One of them, who sat in a corner, was a man 
of gigantic stature, with the most repulsive face I 
ever saw on a human being save one — that of Judge 
Terry, of California. It was deeply pitted by the 
small-pox and crossed by scars which distorted his 
mouth and gave a savage leer to his right eye. His 
mat of coarse black hair was partl} T covered b}^ a 
broad sombrero, once white, but now the color of 
alkali-dust. His huge hands were locked in hand- 
cuffs — each of his splay feet was shackled to an iron 
bar which was fastened to the iron support of the 
seat by a heavy chain and padlock. He wore a coat 
and breeches of smoke-tanned leather, ornamented 
with long fringes of the same material. Altogether 
he was a person I would have avoided as carefully 
in the open day as in the darkness of midnight. His 
fellow-travellers evidently had the monster in charge. 
They were men of the same type as my friend of the 



116 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

telegram, and each openly carried, with the handle 
projecting from his hip-pocket, a Colt's revolver of 
the largest calibre. My new acquaintance shook me 
cordially by the hand, motioned me to a seat oppo- 
site him and near the door of the small room. After 
some indifferent talk, he said he supposed I would 
like to know ivhat the game was, and proceeded to 
give me" the following explanation: 

" Me and my mates there watching the Greaser 
work in the coal-yards at Evanston, near Green 
River, where we bu} 7 our truck and are well known. 
Last winter a young Englishman came to Green 
River to hunt elk and b'ar. He didn't freeze to his 
money, neither did he throw it away. He was a 
tender-foot, but a white one. No man went cold nor 
hungry around his camp, and when the black fever 
come he never run a rod. He stayed by the boys, 
for he was a young doctor, and them that did as he 
told 'em got well. There was nothing he wouldn't 
do for the boys, and you may just bet your pile the 
boys swore by him. He took an old mate of mine 
for his pard; they made long trips, and sometimes 
were gone for a month. Each of them carried a 
Winchester besides his knife and revolver. He had 
two good saddle-horses and fixings, with burros to 
carry the camp traps and provisions. 

" One day they started for a trip down to the big- 
canyon. Two days later one of the horses came into 
Green River with a broken bridle. It was suspi- 
cioned that they was in trouble. The sheriff, a square 
man, who didn't scare for a tribe of Injuns, said he 
was bound he'd find out what was the matter. He 
started alone on the trail — which was keerless. 

" After three or four days, when nothing had been 



JUDGE LYNCH. 117 

heard of the sheriff, that Greaser that you see and 
a half-breed Comanche rode into Green River, one of 
them on the sheriff's horse and one on that of the 
Englishman. They flourished the guns and other 
arms of the hunting party, hazed the whiskey-shops, 
drank and took what they pleased without pay, got 
whoopin' drunk, fired off their guns, and rode off 
toward Evanston. The Green River fellers ain't no 
sneaks; but it was done so sudden that they were 
s'prised-like, and the rascals got off without a shot. 

" That Greaser's name is Jesus Ramon. Any 
Greaser is a bad egg, but he is the worst of the lot. 
He is as strong as a bull, as quick as a cat, as mean 
as a thief, and as murderous as an Arrapahoe. He 
has lived by murder and robbery and horse-stealing, 
and most of the ranchmen are afraid of him, though 
at the bottom he is a coward. The Injun was afraid 
of him, though he too was quick on the shot. Well, 
this Ramon and the Comanche came over to Evans- 
ton to try the Green River game over again. But 
some of our boys got the drop on them in the first 
pulque-shop they struck in our pueblo. They had to 
come down and go to the corral, where watchers were 
put over them for the night. 

" Four of us then started out on the southern trail. 
We only had to ride about sixty miles. The buz- 
zards were sailing in the air over an arroyo where 
a pack of coyotes were snarling and snapping over 
what was left of the sheriff, the Englishman, and his 
pard. Their heads and enough of their bodies were 
left to show that the hunters had been brained with 
hatchets, probably while they were asleep; and the 
sheriff had been shot in the back just as he had 
reached the bodies of the others. We didn't waste 



118 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

any words. We buried what the wolves had left 
under a big mound of heavy stones. Not a word 
was spoke, but each of us knew that the three others 
had decided to attend personally to the case of Jesus 
Ramon. 

" When we got home we found that he had 
bolted. The night had been cold, a fire had been 
built, and in some way the Mexican, who was bound 
with cords, had contrived to burn them off. I have 
told you how strong and cute he was. He waited 
till midnight, when he made a dash, struck down 
his two guards with a stick of wood, and got away 
in the darkness. At the nearest ranch he stole a 
horse and made off. 

" Then we had a caucus. The Comanche, who had 
slept off his drunk, found he was to leave for the 
happy hunting-grounds, and told us the story. The 
Greaser had murdered the first two in their sleep 
and shot the sheriff in the back while he was ex- 
amining the bodies of the others. We talked the 
matter over, and made up our minds that our camp 
would be disgraced if the Greaser was not brought 
back and punished. We four volunteered to bring 
him." 

"What became of the Indian?" I asked. 

"We hung him to start with. He wasn't no ac- 
count, anyway. He was best out of the way. We've 
got a rule in our camp that when a man is sent for 
he's bound to come back or be accounted for. The 
men who go for him have got no call to come back 
until they bring their man. Sometimes they bring 
him on a horse, sometimes in a box. I don't re- 
member no case where the man didn't come. 

" The chase this Greaser led us would have thrown 



JUDGE LYNCH. 119 

off a tenderfoot at the start. He stole a horse at 
a ranch east of the camp, where he left his own big 
tracks in the corral, and the horse appeared to have 
started over some soft ground on the gallop. We 
knew he left that plain trail to mislead us, and we 
lit out in the opposite direction for the Laramie Plains, 
and struck his true trail in twelve hours. I needn't 
tell you what a run he gave us. He struck the 
Northern Pacific, got on the train, and went to Seattle. 
We tried the telegraft, but he had been smart enough 
to cut the line. There he shipped on a brig bound 
for a port near Los Angeles with lumber. We guessed 
he would get on the Southern Pacific and try for the 
mountains of El Paso, for we" knew he would not go 
to Mexico, where he was wanted. We put for 'Frisco 
by stage and train, then on the Southern Pacific to 
Fort Yuma, where we found he was still ahead of us. 
Some one must have let him know that we were after 
him and that the scent was hot, for he kept on east. 
We followed him to ' Orleans, ' where we lost the trail. 
We wired his description and what he was wanted 
for north and northeast. He was so marked that you 
could describe him easy. One day while we was 
halted in ' Orleans ' came a telegraft that our man had 
killed another in a drunken scrap in St. Louis and 
skipped north. We again took up the trail and 
followed it up the Mississippi, over into the Dominion 
to the Canada Pacific Railroad. He had struck it, 
started west, but left it at Saskatchewan. There we 
lost him again, and if it hadn't been for that ugly 
cabeza of his he might have got away for the time. 
Here we had to stay six weeks, until the boys could 
send us money, for we had spent the last nickel. 
One day, in the tepee of an Injun on the west shore 



120 PEESONAL REMINISCENCES. 

of Lake Winnipeg, two of my pards there got the 
drop on him. He had to hold up his hands and give 
up, peaceful-like, for he was looking into the barrels 
of two Winchesters, and he knew the boys was quick 
on the pull. 

" We «leaned him out of knives and guns, down to 
a toothpick, took him to a blacksmith, and had the 
bracelets just riveted on his arms and ankles. We 
brought him to Omaha without much trouble. But 
now, when we're only a day or two from home, he's 
got some scheme in his head which may break out 
any minute. Since they sent us the last money, 
nearly four weeks ago, the boys hadn't heard from 
us until I sent that telegraft. I got you to write it," 
he said with a roguish expression, " because I write a 
back hand, and I wasn't sure they would be able to 
read it. They will be on hand at Evanston." 

" How could they make anything out of that 
dispatch?" I asked. " It was unsigned and not di- 
rected to anybody. It didn't say whom you had 
got, and what was that nonsense about the time of 
day?" 

" You couldn't make it plainer," he replied. " All 
the boys are in the game, so it wasn't no account 
who got the dispatch. Nobody but us was on the 
trail, and we warn't hunting anybody but the 
Greaser. When it said it was four o'clock on the 
train, they could figger when we'd get to camp. It 
was as plain as a badger's trail in the alkali-dust. 
The boys will be on hand, sure !" 

" I suppose you will turn your prisoner over to the 
sheriff," I said. " Where is the jail in which he will 
be kept until he is tried?" 

"Sheriff! Jail!" he exclaimed, as if he did not 



JUDGE LYNCH. 121 

understand me. " Not much ! We've got no sheriff ! 
He murdered him. The corral is all the jail he will 
want. ' Maybe he will have a trial, maybe he won't. 
What's the good of a trial? Didn't he shoot the 
sheriff in the back and murder the Englishman and 
my old pard in their sleep? He didn't give them no 
trial, why should he have one? But likely the boys 
will have settled that." 

" I hope you don't intend to have Judge Lynch 
try this man? That would be a crime in this country 
of law and order." 

" I don't know that Judge Lynch," he said. " Our 
judge's name is Bascom. He's a very strong law- 
and-order man. Suppose you stop over one train and 
see. If there is a trial you shall be on the jury. 
Then you will see how regular our trials are. I 
wouldn't wonder if the boys held the train so that 
everybody may see what a fair show he'll get." 

It was in the afternoon when we approached 
Evanston. I again went forward to the smoking- 
car. The train slowed and ran up to the station 
between two lines of stalwart men. The boys had 
understood the dispatch, for as soon as the train 
came to a stop six of them entered the car. 

"Come, Jesus Ramon!" said their leader. The 
Greaser began to jabber something in Spanish, when 
he was seized and torn out of the car so quickly that 
he carried the seat to which he had been chained 
with him. Some one released him from the seat, a 
lasso was deftly cast over his head and tightened 
around his chest and arms. A single order was 
given, " To the corral !" and the procession moved. 
A guard had in the mean time taken control of the 
locomotive, and it was announced that the train 



122 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

would not leave until notice should be given that the 
exercises had closed. 

The passengers followed the crowd to the corral, 
an inclosure where horses and cattle were kept, sur- 
rounded by a strong close and high fence. Near 
its centre stood a lofty pine tree, which threw out 
its first branch forty feet above the ground. The 
ends of two lassos were knotted together and the 
double length cast over the branch. The end which 
carried the noose was lowered to within a couple of 
yards of a wooden stool, the other end was carried 
outward and attached to two additional lassos. The 
prisoner was brought forward, forcibly seated upon 
the stool, and the noose was adjusted to his neck. 

There were about two hundred men present in 
their working clothes ; the passengers and men from 
the train counted another hundred. The silence was 
oppressive. At last one of the men stepped forward 
and addressed the Mexican substantially in these 
words, written down by me on my return to the 
train : 

" Jesus Ramon, you have come to the last day of 
your life. You are no good. You have spent your 
life in drunkenness, fighting, horse-stealing, and 
murder. You have been a thief and a murderer for 
forty years. When a boy you shot Indians for fun. 
You always shot } r our victims in the back. You are 
a terror to women. Your last crimes have been the 
meanest. This Englishman had been kind to you. 
When you said you were poor he gave you a horse, 
a rifle, and money. While he was off on a hunt and 
you knew he had but little money with him, you stole 
upon him like a coward and killed him and his pard 
in their sleep. The sheriff had befriended you, and 



JUDGE LYNCH. 123 

you shot him in the back for his reward. You in- 
sulted the people of Green River by riding through 
their town on the horse of one of your victims, and 
you dared to give us the same insult. We have con- 
sidered your case and find that you don't want any 
trial. You were guilty of three fresh murders, and 
you ran. You have cost us some time and money. 
You are now standing very near to the end of your 
worthless life. Have you any words or message to 
send or leave before you die?" 

The wretch muttered something in Spanish to the 
effect that he understood nothing. Many voices de- 
clared that he had often spoken English. His anger 
betrayed him. " One chance !" he yelled. " Give me 
one chance and I fight you all !" 

" No, Ramon ; your fights are ended. Do you want 
a priest?" 

" Caramba! No !" he snarled, with the expression 
of a tiger. " I give you six, ten mil pesos for lib- 
erty ! Ten thousand dollars !" 

"You might as well promise to give the earth. 
You never had a peso of your own, and if you had 
ten million of them they would not help you now." 

"Ihaf an amigo. He gif me plata and oro. I 
bring it here in tree day !" 

" Jesus Ramon !" and there was no one present 
who was not impressed by the solemnity of the voice, 
"do you see that train?" He pointed to an in-com- 
ing train far out on the level plain, not less than six 
miles away. " If you have an 3^ request to make, any 
message to leave, any prayer to make to God, make 
it! For when that train whistles for the station 
you die!" 

I felt some inclination to intervene for law and 



124 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

order, but it was very slight. The scene was singu- 
larly impressive. The open country at the base of 
the foothills on one side, with the naked mountain 
two miles high overlooking it, and the rays of the 
setting sun projecting lengthening shadows toward 
the east. In the other direction the alkali plain, 
with the train crawling slowly over it, and in the 
corral the wretch gloomily awaiting his doom. It 
was an experience never to be forgotten. 

Then the stern voice of the leader again broke the 
silence. " Men, form } T our lines !" A double line 
moved outward, the hand of each man grasping the 
free end of the lasso, for no one was to fail to take 
his share of the responsibility. " Men !" said the 
leader, " let it not be said that we did not give even 
this miserable Greaser one chance to live and become 
a better man. We know his past life. There is not 
within fifty miles a ranch that he has not robbed, a 
corral from which he has not stolen, a pulque-shop 
which he has not laid under contribution. We have 
never known him to earn a dollar or pay for any- 
thing. He never saw an Indian woman without in- 
sulting her, a man with money without trying to rob 
him. We know of twenty murders he has com- 
mitted, every one, so far as we know, cowardly. 
But if there is in this crowd one man who ever knew 
Ramon to do any decent act which made an} T man or 
woman better, or who believes that if we let him go 
he would be any better in the future, let him speak, 
and the criminal shall have, at least, a delay ! No 
one speaks ! We have another rule — If one man in 
twenty of those present is in doubt or would advise 
a postponement of the execution, it must be post- 
poned. You that would postpone it, hold up your 



JUDGE LYNCH. 125 

right hands ; and the passengers and train hands, on 
this question, have a right to vote." 

But not a hand was raised. It seemed to be my 
duty to testify for law and order, but my right arm 
felt as if a hundred-pound weight were pulling it 
down. The train was very near now; the lines 
were dressed so that each man stood erect, his face 
turned away from the tree. We almost held our 
breaths. Now! There was a puff of white steam 
from the locomotive — with measured step the men 
moved outward — there was a horribly spasmodic 
struggle — and in a few minutes all was over. 

"Friends," said the spokesman, addressing the 
passengers, "you have seen that we treated this 
Greaser justly and fairl}". We who live here and 
have to protect our property and our lives ask one 
favor of you. We don't like this business, but it has 
to be done. Do not give us awa}' to the newspapers. 
They will send a swarm of reporters here, who are 
worse than a band of Piute Indians. Some of them 
will make it out that Ramon, the murderer and horse- 
thief, was a Christian martyr. We ask you to keep 
your own counsel." 

The whistle sounded, the conductor commanded 
all aboard, the bell rang, and our train moved west- 
ward. We had been delayed exactlj- one hour, which 
was made up before we reached the next station on 
the plains of Laramie. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Judge Lynch, Continued — An Experience 
in a Western Mining-Camp. 

I was on a visit to a mining-camp down the val- 
ley from Austin, Nevada. The camp was in a canyon 
wide enough for the road and a row of buildings on 
each side. The mines in the rocks on either hand 
were entered through drifts nearly on a level with 
the road. 

I had breakfasted with the family of the superin- 
tendent, and, with several of the leading men of the 
camp, was smoking a cigar on a raised platform in 
front of the counting-room, when we heard from a 
whiskey-shop on the other side of the way, a short 
distance above, the crack of a revolver. 

" The shooting begins early this morning at Pat's !" 
remarked the superintendent. " That is the worst 
gambling and fighting hole at the camp. We count 
on a shooting game there as often as once a week." 

While he was speaking a man ran out of " Pat's" 
into a groggery on the opposite side, then came out 
and started up an arroyo or dry watercourse at right 
angles to the canyon. 

" Stop thief !" What magic is there in those words 

to collect a crowd. Except the fugitive, there had 

been no human being visible — within a moment after 

this cry there were fifty. They were multiplied by 

126 



AN EXPERIENCE IN A MINING-CAMP. 127 

"Stop the murderer!" "Shoot the rascal!" — and a 
crowd of old men and young boys and Indians 
streamed up the arroyo after the flying man. A 
young active runner was in the advance, rapidly 
overtaking the fugitive. " Stop !" I heard him cry. 
" Halt and throw up your hands, or I will drop you 
as I would a coyote !" He was obeyed. The man 
halted, held up his hands, faced down the hill, and 
coolly asked of his captor, "Well, what do you want 
of me?" 

" I want you to march down the hill to the road. 
Then I will tell you what to do farther." To the 
crowd he said: "This man is my meat. I am a 
sheriff, and no man shall touch my prisoner ! Put 
up your guns ! No man shall have him until I have 
finished with him." 

The crowd rather sullenly acquiesced. They got 
the sheriff and his prisoner in their midst and forced 
them into the road in front of where we were sitting. 
There they halted, and I heard subdued expressions of 
" Let's take him to the corral !" " Who's got a rope?" 
"A lasso will answer!" Some one in the crowd 
shouted, " He has shot Billy Osborne ! " and the mur- 
murs were increased. 

"What do they want to do with this man?"' I 
asked of the superintendent. 

"Hang him, I reckon," he replied. "If he has 
killed Osborne I am rather in favor of it myself. " 

This cool proposition to l} r nch the fellow shocked 
me. Meantime the sheriff was shouting and threat- 
ening, but I saw that he was in fear that the pris- 
oner might be taken out of his hands. I rose im- 
pulsively and addressed the crowd. I urged them 
not to commit another murder, but to have the man 



128 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

tried. "He didn't give Billy no show!" said one. 
" He was worth a hundred like him." 

"No matter about that," I said. "Anybody is 
entitled to a trial. Convict him, and then hang him 
as soon as you like." 

It was evident that I was making but little im- 
pression. They seemed to listen to my earnestness 
with a kind of amused expression. The young 
sheriff's deputy, however, took the opportunity to 
work his man toward the edge of the crowd, near the 
mouth of a drift into the mine. Suddenly he shoved 
his prisoner inside, placed himself in front of the 
opening, revolver in hand, and said : 

" I don't like to disappoint } r ou, bo}*s, but I am an 
officer, and I am bound to hold this man and commit 
him to jail. I know the inside of this mine. There 
is no place to get into or out of it but here. No man 
goes into it but to help me. The man inside don't 
come out until I have bound him so that he cannot 
get away. You had better give up the chase, boys, 
or turn in and help me tie him !" 

There were murmurs of dissatisfaction, but the 
crowd gradually dispersed. I attended the inquest. 
The prisoner, it was proved, was an ill-tempered, 
reckless gambler and cheat, who had been driven 
out of a mining-town some thirty miles south and 
had only come into this camp the previous afternoon. 
At a monte game at "Pat's" he had been caught 
cheating and had a fight, but the quarrel was made 
up and the game went on until daybreak, when the 
party separated, the gambler and the man who de- 
tected him apparently friends. The gambler went 
into a whiskey-mill opposite, borrowed a revolver, 
and came back. As he entered " Pat's " he aimed at 



AN EXPERIENCE IN A MINING-CAMP. 129 

his opponent, fired, and his ball struck in the fore- 
head of a miner who was asleep sitting on a bench, 
killing him instantly. 

Some of the testimony was pathetic. Osborne, the 
murdered man, was a general favorite. " He was my 
pard, " said one. " He had a wife and kids in the 
East and he was working to pay for his little farm. 
In another month or two his pile would be big 
enough, and he was going home. 'I can't drink 
with the boys,' he used to saj*, 'if I don't set up the 
p'ison, and every dollar I spend that way puts off 
the time when my babies will be climbing on my lap 
and hanging on to my neck. ' ' And honest tears 
rolled down the rough face of the narrator as he said 
with a trembling voice, " He was a white man, was 
my pard, and it's an infernal shame to have such a 
man wiped out by a d — d skulking, good-for-nothing 
long-fingered monte sharp." 

The verdict was wilful murder. Before it was 
given a wagon with a pair of horses on the gallop 
dashed down the road. The wagon contained three 
men. Lying on his back in the straw, bound hand 
and foot, was the murderer, who was being taken 
to the jail at the county town. 

The same afternoon, after a weary tramp through 
the mines, I was seated on the same platform, rest- 
ing. I had met in these Western mines graduates 
of our universities, thoroughly intelligent men. I 
was not, therefore, much surprised when a miner 
with grizzled hair, clad in his working dress, came 
to me and said : 

" I suppose, sir, that you are pleased by the success 
of your intervention for that murderer this morning?" 

I answered that it was only natural that I should 
9 



130 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

be gratified if any effort of mine had prevented a 
breach of the law and tended to secure the man a 
fair trial, and that I looked upon murder by lynch- 
ing as no better than murder with malice. 

" You are mistaken, " he said. " Your opinion would 
be more valuable if you had my experience. Here 
is a wretch who lives by cheating ; probably he never 
earned an honest dollar. He lives upon the industry 
of others. He wanders from camp to camp, robbing 
or cheating every one who gives him the opportunitj'. 
Driven out of Belmont, he came here, and naturally 
gravitated to the nearest dog-hole in the camp. He 
had not been here twenty-four hours before he had 
killed an industrious, worthy man, who was working 
for his wife and children in the East. Had 3 r ou not 
interfered, the boys would have laid him away and 
covered him where he would never again have done 
any harm to anybody. You stopped the boys in their 
good work. You have done nothing to be proud of, 
sir!" 

"He will not escape punishment," I replied. 
" Upon the evidence he must be indicted and con- 
victed, and he ought to be hung." 

"Do you think so? How little you know about 
this sage-brush country ! He is in no danger from 
the law, and he knows it. He will employ lawyers, 
hire gamblers to swear falsely, and probably be ac- 
quitted. If not, the worst that will happen will be 
that the jury will disagree and he will get out on 
straw bail. There is only one way to deal with such 
wretches. They are only good to stretch a lasso. I 
have had twenty-five years' experience, and I know." 

" Would you be willing to relate any experience of 
yours which justifies hanging a man without a trial?" 



AN EXPERIENCE IN A MINING-CAMP. 131 

" I will tell you a little story ; you may draw your 
own conclusions," he said. "I was a forty-niner in 
Grizzly Gulch, in Nevada County, California. We 
had all kinds of men from almost every country. 
Our camp was a mile away from the Gulch, where 
we were placer-mining. Some lived in tents, some 
in huts. Every day all the men left the camp and 
stayed all day in the diggings — not a man was left 
in a camp in which there was not a bolt nor a lock 
and very few doors. We had no stealing — no claim- 
jumping. If two men disagreed and they were any- 
way fairly matched, they fought with their fists 
and then shook hands and were friends. If they 
were not matched, some one volunteered or we made 
it even some other way. That was a camp worth 
living in. There was a great deal of travel there. 
We used to set our pans of gold out in the sun to 
dry. A man would take up a pan and examine the 
dust, but he always put it down just as he found it. 
Along at first there were some scraps. Some horses 
and burros were stolen. But the thieves were always 
sent for and we hung them every time. We have 
sent after men to Mexico, Alaska, and over the 
Sierra. 

" After people got acquainted with us and things 
got settled, we had the peaceablest camp on the coast. 
I don't remember one case where the thief got away 
with another man's money or property. We made 
our judges and lawyers as we wanted them, and 
when the trial was over they went back to work in 
the diggings. It was a pleasure to live there. I tell 
you that in a new country what you call law and 
order may do for milksops; men want something 
stronger." 



132 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

" How many men do you suppose you hung before 
the country got, as you call it, settled?" 

" I don't remember. Maybe twenty." 

" Do you not think that as population increases 
laws and judges are necessary, or at least use- 
ful?" 

"They may be; but, like other evils, should be 
postponed as long as they can be. They are not yet 
necessary in this camp. When they are I shall 
migrate." 

" Was the condition you have described in Nevada 
County permanent, or did it soon change?" 

"It was temporary. When the diggings were 
washed out, hydraulic and quartz mining came in 
and the forty-niners scattered. I went there a few 
weeks ago on a visit. Well! there was a change! 
They have got churches and a big school-house and 
two newspapers ! And how those newspapers do abuse 
each other ! They have got a big stone court-house 
and judges, three or four kinds, and sheriffs, and all 
sorts of offices. You would think that one-half the 
people were living on the others. One day while I 
was there a stage came into the town, the horses on 
the run and the passengers very white under the 
gills. What was the matter? Only two miles out- 
side the town two masked gentlemen had stopped 
that stage, ordered the passengers out (five of them 
were called men), made them hold up their hands, 
and one robber went through them while the other 
watched with a cocked gun. The whole party were 
cleaned out of their watches and money. They even 
searched two women and took their trinkets. One 
of the passengers, a merchant, made some effort to 
defend his bar of gold, and they shot him down and 



AN EXPERIENCE IN A MINING-CAMP. 133 

left him dying in the road ! Have you heard that 
these murderers were punished? Oh, no! The news- 
papers published columns about the 'horrible out- 
rage.' A public meeting was called, resolutions 
were passed, rewards offered, and the biggest kind of 
a fuss was made. But the murderers have been as 
safe as a thief in a mill. What would we have done 
in '50? I will tell you. We would not have had any 
meetings or resolutions. We would have picked 
out our two best men for that kind of work. 
They wouldn't have been troubled by any orders. 
But they would have taken that trail and run it 
down, with two dead highway robbers at the end of 
it, or they would have been following it to-day ! You 
may not like that kind of practice for murderers ; I 
do. It makes a more quiet camp." 

I could not deny some of the premises of the grizzly 
miner. To test his prophecies, I made it in my way 
to visit the county town where the fellow who had 
just shot Osborne was to be tried. I arrived late in 
the evening and was shown to a room in the hotel, 
where, after a futile attempt to rid myself of a coat- 
ing of alkali-dust, I took my supper and retired. I 
could not sleep ; there was a murmur of voices and a 
clink of coin in the room below. After tossing on 
m} T bed for two hours, I dressed and went below to 
investigate. Adjoining the bar was an improvised 
gambling-room. At one end of it a clerical-looking 
gentleman was dealing faro; at the other was a 
roulette-wheel and a man profuse in his invitations 
to the boys to try their luck. The landlord could not 
give me another room unless I would occupy the same 
bed with a stranger, and he said the boys would want 
to keep up their game until daylight. I spent the 



134 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

rest of the night in reading a bloocl-and-thunder 
novel which I found in my room. 

Among the visitors I found the next morning m3 T 
old acquaintance, the advocate of lynch law. He 
said the game was set up and the fellow would be 
acquitted on the ground of self-defence. But the 
boys had come over from the camp ; there might be 
some chance for them to take a hand. 

The room was filled with a very miscellaneous 
crowd when the court was opened. Scarcely three 
of the regular panel of jurors answered, and the 
sheriff filled the panel with talesmen from the crowd. 
The whole bar appeared to be acting for the respond- 
ent, and the young prosecutor seemed to be com- 
pletely outweigh ted. He proved the facts, however, 
and made full proof for a conviction. 

A cloud of witnesses appeared for the respondent. 
His defence was contradictory and almost impossi- 
ble. It was a case of accidental shooting; he in- 
tended to kill the other fellow, but it was proved that 
the dead man had had a difficulty with the respond- 
ent at Belmont, and two witnesses, who were most 
undoubtedly suborned, swore that he had threatened 
the respondent's life. The jury made short work of 
the case, and in ten minutes brought in a verdict of 
not guilty. 

After the verdict I again met my lynch-law 
friend. He did not say " I told you so !" He was hi 
a serious frame of mind ; said he had told the gam- 
bler to get out of town as soon as he could and try 
to live a decent life; but he was cocky, would not 
take his advice, and now he might go to the devil in 
his own way. His road might be a short one, for 
Osborne had many friends, some of whom had wit- 



AN EXPERIENCE IN A MINING-CAMP. 135 

nessed the sham of a trial and might pull their guns 
upon the murderer on any reasonable provocation. 

I was compelled for want of a conveyance to pass 
another night in the town, and at the same hotel, 
for there was no other. As I passed the door of the 
gambling-room I saw that the acquitted felon had 
taken the place of the clerical-looking party and 
was dealing faro. He had been hired by the propri- 
etor as a drawing card. I was weary and fell asleep 
notwithstanding the sound of profanity and the jingle 
of coin which came up from below. 

The sound of a single shot awakened me. I sprang 
from my bed, on which I had thrown myself without 
undressing, and went to the foot of the stairway. 
Through the door I saw a crowd around the prostrate 
form of a man near the dealer's chair, and I heard 
expressions of " He's a goner !" " He's passed in his 
checks," and the like. My friend of lynch-law 
sympathies approached me, pointed to the motionless 
bodj", and whispered the single word " Habet ! " The 
prostrate man was the gambler, and he was dead. 

A witness at the inquest next day gave substan- 
tially the following account of the "scrap," as he 
called it. The table was full, and two boys from the 
mining-camp were bucking the tiger. Every time 
there was a pile on any card the bank won. One of 
the mining boys asked if it was a skin game. The 
owner swore it was square. " He never played any- 
thing but a square game. He didn't believe it would 
be safe to put up a skin game on that crowd." 

"Right you are," said the miner. "It wouldn't 
be safe. I'd as lief not play; but if I am in the 
game has got to be square, or maybe suthin'll hap- 
pen. Your dealer there is quick on the shoot, I know, 



136 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

and I don't believe he's square. Oh, you needn't 
slide your hand down to your pocket that way. 
See?" and in a flash he had the pull on him. 

" I was not going to draw on you," said the dealer 
as he took up the pack. 

"All right," said the miner. "I was only saying 
don't you deal two cards, nor try, again. I don't 
know as you dealt two cards, but I know you tried," 
he continued as he lowered his revolver. 

After that the game went on very quietly. The 
mining boys lost a good pile, then their luck turned 
and they played it man-fashion. There were only 
three cards in the box when one of the boys coppered 
the nine of clubs for ten twenty-dollar gold-pieces. 
I never saw anything done quicker. The next card 
was the bank's. He dealt it and turned it up. Be- 
fore he could lay it on the pile the miner had plugged 
him. As he fell, two cards dropped from his fin- 
gers. The miner said, " That play was for Billy 
Osborne !" 

The jury returned a verdict that the shooting was 
in self-defence. It seemed to satisfy everybody. As 
I was about entering the stage the next day, my lec- 
turing friend, who was in a reflective mood, said, 
"Was it Cicero or Tacitus who wrote 'Ah alio spec- 
tes, alteri quod feceris" 1 ? It is as sound doctrine in 
a Nevada poker-shop as in the Roman Senate. The 
gambler got what he had given to Osborne and no 
doubt to many others. It was the best disposition 
that could have been made of him, for himself and 
certainly for the community." 

The advocate of what he would have called " nat- 
ural justice " was a singular illustration of the ten- 
dency of our race to retrograde toward its original 



AN EXPERIENCE IN A MINING-CAMP. 137 

condition. This man was a university graduate, of 
good family, in comfortable circumstances. Moved 
by a pure spirit of adventure and the attractions of 
the gold discoveries, he had crossed the plains and 
become a gold-digger. His habits appeared to be 
fairly good, and now for years he had experienced 
the vicissitudes of a miner's life, and at that time 
was a common workman for daj* wages. There came 
later another change. Within a year I heard of him 
as a judge of the highest court in one of the most 
enterprising of our Territories whic his now a State. 
My chance acquaintance is its Chief Justice. He 
occasionally sends me a copy of one of his opinions, 
which shows that he is equal to his judicial position 
and that he fills it to the satisfaction of his fellow- 
citizens. 

Very recently my attention was called to an article 
in a legal magazine on "The Increase of Crime." 
It was written by a Western lawyer of ability who 
had been cautious and industrious in the collection 
of his statistics. Some of them may surprise the 
reader as they did me. He states that murders are 
more numerous at the present time than they ever 
were before; that the record of murders in this 
country for the six years 1884 to 1889, inclusive, 
gives a total of almost fifteen thousand — the last year 
exceeding by several hundred either of the preceding 
years in the number of lives taken by violence. It 
is interesting to note that onl} r about ten per cent of 
these murderers were legally executed, and that much 
the larger number of them who paid the penalty of 
their crimes met retributive justice at the hands of 
Judge Lynch. Of the persons charged with murder 
in these years only five hundred and fifty -eight were 



138 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

legally executed, while nine hundred and seventy-five 
were lynched. 

When it is shown that in a period of six years 
murder was legally punished only in about one case 
in twenty-seven, it is impossible to avoid the conclu- 
sion that there is some defect in our legal system. I 
do not propose here to discuss the cause of this fail- 
ure of justice ; whether it is due to the maudlin sym- 
pathy for great criminals or to ineffective prosecu- 
tion is unimportant. The fact remains that while in 
new and especiall3 T in mining communities justice 
at the hands of the people is swift and certain, it 
fails in the majority of cases in law-abiding com- 
munities. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Adirondack Days — Untried Companions in 
the Wilderness — Their Perils and Expe- 
riences. 

I am to write of the past — of days that will 
never return because the conditions that made them 
delightful can never be reproduced. I was inexperi- 
enced in the woods in 1846 when I made my first 
visit to the Adirondacks. I did not then know that 
in the forest the true inwardness of man was revealed 
and that one should never risk association there 
except with true sportsmen and very honest men. 
But I was an apt scholar — my first lesson was effec- 
tive. I have made many later excursions there, but 
always with carefully selected associates. 

You who visit the Adirondack region now, after 
vandal hands have obstructed the outlets, raised the 
waters and killed the trees, so that along the banks 
of every river and around the shores of every lake 
there is a row of whitened skeletons of what were 
once the verdant glories of arboreal life, know no 
more of the original beauty of that scenery of moun- 
tain, lake, tree, and river than he who looks upon the 
cold marble and broken arms knows of the warm 
glow of life and beauty which shone in the living 
model of the Venus of Milo. 

In those days the shores of Long Lake and many 
others bore no marks of the hand of man. The trees 

139 



140 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

and shrubs covered them to the very edge of the clear 
water, so that as we floated along the surface it was 
impossible to distinguish where substance ended and 
shadow began. From the summit of Tahawus, 
scores of these lakes shone like jewels of purest 
emerald. From my first camp on the high western 
bank just above the outlet of Long Lake, looking 
eastward, there were eight well-defined masses of 
color, from the silvery sheen of the lake through 
shades of green to the deep blue of the mountain 
summit. It was a vision of color. 

In that camp I lived five weeks and saw no human 
face save those which belonged to my own party. 
Then a saddle of venison, a brace of young wood or 
black ducks, or a half-dozen of ruffed grouse were to 
be had in an hour's shooting, and near the mouth of 
Cold River, just below the outlet, a couple of brook 
trout of four pounds weight were to be had in a 
cloudy day in half the time. Now there is a route 
of summer travel through the lake and down the 
river, and the game of those days has only a legen- 
dary existence. Nowhere in landscape scenery have 
more deplorable changes been wrought by thirty 
years of vandalism. 

I knew no better then than to permit the addition 
to my party of an artist with a masculine Scotch 
wife who ruled him with a heavy hand, and a min- 
ister with his two boys of fourteen and sixteen years 
of whom I knew nothing. A chill comes over me as 
I think what a narrow escape I had from committing 
a felony upon those boys. They were unmannerly 
cubs who would not obey their father, and passed 
their time when awake in howling like untamed 
hyenas. They were nuisances — " from night till 



ADIRONDACK DAYS. 141 

morn, from morn till dewy eve." I got rid of them 
at Newcomb, near the head of the lake, by alarming 
their father with the well-founded apprehension that 
the Indian guide would certainly contrive to rid the 
camp of them by accident or design. 

My guides were Mitchell Sabattis and Alonzo 
Wether by. Sabattis was a St. Francis Indian, a 
skilful hunter, and became afterward one of the finest 
characters I ever knew. At that time he got howl- 
ing drunk at every opportunity. It is a pleasure to 
remember that he always attributed his reformation 
to his connection with me, and that for the last thirty 
years of his life he was a kind husband, an excellent 
father to worthy children, and a most reputable citi- 
zen. He died only a few years ago, a class-leader in 
the Methodist Church, universally respected. " 'Lon 
Wetherby" was an equally good hunter, a giant in 
strength and a Yankee by birth. To hear the rich, 
liquid sound with which he rolled out his only oath, 
"By Ga-u-u-11!" was worth a journey to the outlet of 
Long Lake. 

I did not exist five weeks in a camp with the min- 
ister or the artist and his Scotch wife, and I may as 
well here describe our separation. 

I wanted to have a personal experience in floating 
for deer. The night after we reached camp, Sabattis 
made his " jack" to carry the light and fitted up his 
boat for the trial. The minister wanted to go with 
us. He "would not make a sound," he said. He 
would lie on his back in the bottom of the boat and 
silently watch the operation. Mitchell cautioned 
him that the slightest sound would destroy all our 
chances, and after repeated promises of absolute 
silence we took him along. 



142 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

We placed him on his back in the bottom of the 
boat, where he was not to speak even in a whisper. 
The jack or light was in the bow and I was just in 
its rear. Mitchell sat in the stern and paddled. It 
was a weird and noiseless, a ghostly performance, as 
onr boat crept along the shore without breaking the 
silence of the wilderness. The falling of a dead tree 
on the flank of a distant mountain woke the echoes 
along the shore like the report of a cannon. The note 
of the screech-owl in the branches overhead — the 
grating of a rush along the keel of the boat, alike 
started the blood to the extremities. Far out upon 
the lake was heard that desolating sound at mid- 
night, the chattering of the loon. Overhead the 
stars shone through the pure atmosphere, so pure 
that Venus and Jupiter cast shadows. 

We had been out but a few minutes when we 
heard the threshing of some large animal among the 
lily-pads, just opposite the camp. Silently the boat 
was turned in that direction, and I knew that we 
were approaching my first deer. My gun was in the 
hollow of my arm — I was peering into the darkness 
to catch the first reflection of the light upon the eyes 
of the noble game, which was to be my signal for a 
shot, when like a bellow from a bull of Bashan 
there broke from the bottom of the boat and rolled 
out upon the silence of the night the words : 

" Great and wonderful are Thy works, O " 

The rush of a noble buck as he bounded across the 
patch of light into the forest and the exclamation of 
the furious Indian, " Why don't you shoot his fool 
head off?" met a strong impulse in my mind to do 
what Mitchell suggested. But I restrained myself 



ADIRONDACK DAYS. 143 

to the inquiry, " How many kinds of a fool do you 
suppose you are, anyway?" 

He was profuse in apologies. He had not heard 
any sound — he was so overcome by the glories of the 
starlit sky that he quite forgot himself — the words 
escaped from his mouth involuntarily. If we would 
now go on he was certain he could keep quiet. 

" There is no deer within two miles of Long Lake 
now," said Mitchell. "That sound would scare the 
devil. We go home — no use for waste time to- 
night." 

And home we went with no venison. On the way 
I told the parson that we would have to part com- 
pany ; that Mitchell, like all his race, was of an un- 
forgiving nature ; that he was angry and might be 
dangerous; that I would loan him " 'Lon Wetherby" 
to row him through Catlin Lake to Newcomb, where 
he might perhaps make up a party and go off in 
another direction. He was much frightened and 
very grateful. I gave 'Lon his directions, and when 
I arose the next morning the minister had departed 
and I saw him no more. 

I separated from the artist and his dreadful wife 
on this wise. Wishing to take some exercise, on the 
following afternoon I took one of the boats and de- 
termined to go down the Raquette River to the 
mouth of Moose Creek and ascend the creek, by way 
of exploration. Sabattis said I should probably see 
nothing, but it was always well on such an explora- 
tion to take with me a loaded gun. The artist wanted 
to go along and make sketches, and I took him on 
condition that he was not under any circumstances 
to utter a sound or interfere with me. 



144 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

I rowed down to the mouth of the creek, shipped 
the oars, and seated myself in the stern to paddle. 
My double gun loaded with buckshot cartridges 
lay on the bottom of the boat within easy reach. 
The artist sat on the rowing seat in the middle of 
the boat. The water in the creek was very low. I 
paddled slowly up, both of us looking forward. 

I had turned a sharp point about half-way up the 
creek and was opening another, projecting from the 
opposite side, when on its extreme end, and at 
least fifty yards from the cover, I saw extended on the 
sand a full-grown black bear. Forcing the paddle 
into the sand, I had stopped the boat and, was about 
to reach for my gun, when in a flash bang ! bang ! 
went both its barrels, and one cartridge hurtled by 
within a few inches of my head. 

If I was ever furious it was then ! The bear was 
not thirty yards away — he had to cross the gravel 
forty yards before he reached the bushes. I should 
certainly have planted both cartridges in his vitals. 
He was in no haste. After the painter had sent the 
last charge whizzing past my head in the opposite 
direction, the bear stood upon his feet, shook himself, 
and deliberately trotted across the open space into 
the bushes. He even stopped and took a good look 
at us before he disappeared. 

It would be a weak expression to say that I was 
discouraged. It was useless to get angry — I could 
not do the subject of that artist justice. I was irri- 
tated, provoked, exasperated. After my experience 
of last evening with the minister, why did I take 
any chances with the painter? He of course was 
arguing, explaining, apologizing, expounding. He 
had been excited — he had seized the gun and dis- 



ADIRONDACK DAYS. 145 

charged it before he knew what he was doing. He 
was very sorry — he humbly begged my pardon. It 
should not occur again ! 

" Young man !" I said solemnly, " you are right. 
It will not occur again ! If I thought there was any 
danger that it would I do not know what I might 
do. Do not tempt Providence farther. We are going 
back to the camp, and you must prepare to leave at 
once. If that bear should meet you I would not 
give a farthing for your life. I feel like making an 
end of you myself, but I will give you one more 
chance if you will go to-morrow." He went, and 
his wife with him. Mitchell left them in a lumber 
camp and returned the next day. Thank fortune, I 
never saw them again ! 

We were much in need of venison. We were ex- 
pecting company and there was no fresh meat in the 
camp. One rainy, foggy night, Sabattis and myself 
went to the same Moose Creek to try for a deer. 
The water had suddenly risen and the adjacent 
marshes were overflowed. We had ascended the 
creek as far as it would carry our boat and had found 
nothing. On our return about half-way to the river, 
we heard a deer. He was standing in the shallow 
water on the marsh and outside the curtain of wil- 
lows which grew upon the bank. Mitchell stopped 
the boat opposite where he stood, so near that we 
could hear him chewing the leaves. It was impos- 
sible to get a sight of any part of him. If we made 
any disturbance he was certain to disappear instantly 
in the darkness. 

Five minutes we stood endeavoring to pierce that 
curtain with our eyes. Then I estimated as well as 
I could his height above the water, aimed where I 
10 



146 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

thought his chest ought to be, and gave him one bar- 
rel. Away he went across the broad marsh, dashing 
through the water until he reached the solid ground, 
where his measured gallop grew fainter, until to my 
ear it was no longer to be heard on account of the 
distance. 

" Well ! we have lost him," I said, in a tone of dis- 
appointment. " I am sorry, for he was a noble buck. 
I got one glance at his antlers. " 

"How can we lose what we never had?" was 
Mitchell's pertinent inquiry. "But we will have 
him yet before daylight. He is hard hit and will 
not run very far." 

"Why do you say that?" I asked. " He bounded 
away in a very lively manner as if he was uninjured." 

"For two reasons," he answered. "He did not 
snort or whistle as an unwounded deer always does 
when suddenly startled. Then one of his fore-legs 
appeared, by the sound, to be crippled." 

He pushed the boat rapidly across the marsh to the 
hard ground, and with the light in his hand soon 
found where the deer had passed through the thick 
weeds and grasses. " It is all right, " he said. " Here 
is where he went out, and it's as bloody as a butcher's 
shop." 

I came near where he stood. "Show me the 
blood," I said. 

"Why there! and there! and there! all over! 
Don't you see it?" he exclaimed. 

" I see nothing but wet leaves and bushes, " I re- 
plied. " Now stop and show me what you call blood." 

He plucked a leaf with incurved edges, on the wet 
surface of which there was a discoloration which he 
said was blood. " It is as plain as can be," he said; 



ADIRONDACK DAYS. 147 

" you would not expect a wounded buck in a hurry- 
to stop and paint a United States flag for our benefit. 
I am going for him," he continued. "You stay 
in the boat until you hear a shot, which may mean 
that I have found him or that I have given him up. 
Then you fire a pistol, which will give me my bear- 
ings and save time." 

With the lantern in one hand and my gun in the 
other, he disappeared in the foggy night. How long 
I lay stiffening in the boat or stamped along the 
shore in an effort to keep my blood in circulation, I 
do not know. But after what seemed hours of weary 
waiting, away up on the side of the mountain I 
heard the faint report of a gun. I fired the revolver 
in answer and waited again until I heard something 
threshing down the hill. 

"Is that you, Mitchell?" I shouted. 

"Yes," he answered. "I have got him. He is a 
splendid buck ; not too old and in prime condition. 
He will provision the camp for a week." 

He now appeared, dragging the deer after him. 

" How did you find him?" I asked. 

"I followed his track over the wet leaves," he an- 
swered. " Where he stopped the spot was marked 
by a pool of blood. These were nearer together as 
we went up the hill. Finally I overtook him. He 
was standing with his head down and I saw he had 
been hard hit. I held the jack in one hand and shot 
him with the gun held in the other." 

Mark, now, what this Indian had done. His ear 
had detected an injury to one of the animal's fore- 
legs. In the dark and rainy night, by the light of the 
"jack," he had found his path out of the marsh, had 
followed it over fallen trees, through the thick brush- 



148 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

wood, a mile or more up the steep hillside, until he 
had overtaken the wounded deer, and holding the 
light in one hand and the gun in the other had given 
him the fatal shot. Such a story seems incredible. 
Had I not seen the results I think I would not myself 
believe it. 

We reached our camp just as the sun was climb- 
ing over the tops of the eastern mountains. The 
yellow fog retreated before it — the green of the forest, 
the blue of the lake, and the gold of the sun united 
in a landscape of glorious beauty, which drove the 
chill from our bodies and the weariness from our 
limbs. 

When the deer was dressed it was found that my 
cartridge had struck his shoulder-blade in an oblique 
direction. Every shot save one had glanced outward 
— that one had passed through his vitals and would 
have ultimately proved fatal. 

No account of the Adirondacks would be complete 
without a fish-story. Mine runs after this wise. I 
had made preparations and had great expectations. 
I had fly-rods and bass-rods and reels, books of flies, 
bait in imitation of all the monstrous and impossi- 
ble animals which the trout are reputed to fancy. 
But the display did not excite the enthusiasm of 
either of my guides — on the contrary, they appeared 
to view it with contempt. The bass-rod, which had 
no elasticity and which was strong enough to lift 
fifty pounds at the tip, and a gaudy scarlet ibis fly 
they thought might answer, but a tamarack pole and 
" worms for bait" were preferable. The remainder 
of the lay-out was trash except a six-ounce thirty-dol- 
lar fly-rod which " might answer as well as a hand- 
line to catch minnows !" Such was the lesson admin- 



ADIRONDACK DAYS. 149 

istered to my fisherman's pride when I handed over 
to them my costly outfit and asked them to select 
what was adapted to Adirondack fishing. 

For several days they seemed disinclined to fish. 
One day the sun was too bright, the next was too 
dark ; one day was too hot, the next too chilly, until 
I began to despair of finding a day suited for fishing 
in the Adirondack wilderness. 

But a day came when Mitchell said with Peter, " I 
go a-fishing," and like one of the other disciples I 
said, "I go with you." It was a yellow afternoon, 
when the clouds seemed to intercept the rays but not 
the color of the sun. He selected the rod which 
had landed striped bass and bluefish on Pasque Island, 
a heavy line and the large hook with the scarlet fly, 
also a tamarack pole and a box of earth-worms for 
emergencies. " He didn't care to fish himself — I 
would get enough if the trout was anyways lively." 

About three o'clock in the afternoon, as the sun 
was sinking in the west below the crest of Buck 
Mountain, he rowed me down to the mouth of Cold 
River, ascended the stream to a place where it 
widened into a broad pool with bold shores, tied his 
boat to an alder, and proceeded to fill and light his 
pipe. I had meantime taken the rod from its case, 
jointed it and arranged the line, and reel, with three 
or four buckshot on the line, without which a cast 
of twenty feet with that rod could not have been 
made. Mitchell attached the fly, and pointing to a 
dcaying stump on the bank said : " Under that stump 
ought to be a good place for a trout." 

I made the cast. The moment the fly struck the 
water the surface in the vicinit}' was seething like a 
whirlpool. There was a vicious jerk on the line, and 



150 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

the reel hummed like a buzz-saw as thirty yards of 
the line ran out. As I checked the fish he rushed 
past the boat within reach of Mitchell's landing-net. 
He made one sweep and a five-pound brook trout lay 
panting in the boat, my first fish in the Adirondacks. 
What followed was mere repetition. Everj- time 
the fly struck the water a half-dozen trout leaped to 
seize it. My tackle was -strong, and Mitchell looked 
upon playing the fish as a waste of time. In a short 
half -hour five brook trout lay in our boat side by 
side, weighing a little more than twenty pounds. It 
was enough to supply our table. I would not com- 
mit the crime of killing such splendid game for 
which we had no use. That short half -hour was an 
era in my life. The uniformity of size and weight, 
I suppose, arose from the fact that all the trout were 
full-grown. 

In those delightful five weeks I formed an attach- 
ment for these guides which lasted as long as they 
lived. From Wetherby, and later from others, I 
learned that Sabattis was a generous fellow whom 
every one liked, but he would get drunk upon every 
opportunity, and then he was a madman. His wife 
was a worthy white woman. They had five children. 
The sons were as skilled in woodcraft as their father 
and inherited the excellent qualities of their mother. 
One of them grew up with the figure of Apollo, 
and when I last saw him I thought that physically he 
was the most perfect man I had ever seen. 



CHAPTER XVI. 
The Story of Mitchell Sabattis. 

I spent my last night at Mitchell's home in New- 
comb, where a conveyance from Elizabethtown was 
to meet me. Mitchell and his wife appeared de- 
pressed by some impending calamity. I made them 
tell me their trouble. There was a mortgage upon 
their home and little farm. It was due, the property 
was to be sold about four weeks later, and they saw 
no way of avoiding this, to them, ruinous result. If 
his home was sold, Mitchell's habits would be worse 
than ever. 

Mitchell's wife assured me that he was proud of 
the fact that he had never broken his word ; she said 
he was a kind husband, and if she could induce him 
to promise not to drink, she would even be reconciled 
to the loss of her home. 

The next morning when the horses were at the 
door and I was about to leave, I called Mitchell and 
his wife into their little "square room," seated my- 
self between them, and asked : 

" Mitchell, what would you give to one who would 
buy your mortgage and give you time in which to 
pay it?" 

"I would give my life," he exclaimed, "the day 
after I had paid the debt. I would give it now if I 
could leave this little place to my Bessie and her 
children." 

151 



152 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

" It will not cost you so much as that, " I said. " I 
am going to Elizabethtown. I shall buy or pay your 
mortgage. Your home will not be sold. On the 
morning of the second day of August of next year, I 
want you and "Lon' with your boats to meet me at 
Bartlett's, between the Upper and Lower Saranac 
Lakes. If you there tell me that you have not drunk 
a glass of strong liquor since I saw you last, your 
mortgage shall not trouble you so long as you will 
keep your promise not to drink. If you break your 
promise I do not know what I shall do, but I shall 
lose all my confidence in Mitchell Sabattis. Your 
wife and children will not be driven from their home 
until you get drunk again." 

He promised instantly, solemnly. He rose from 
his chair. I thought he looked every inch the chief 
which by birth he claimed to be as he said : " You 
may think you cannot trust me, but you can ! Sabat- 
tis when he was sober never told a lie. He will 
never lie to his friend." 

For a few minutes there was in that humble room 
a very touching scene. The Indian silent, solemn, 
but for the speaking arm thrown lovingly around 
the neck of his wife, apparently emotionless — the wife 
trying to say through her tears — " I told you you 
could trust Mitchell ! He will keep his promise — he 
will never get drunk again. I know him so well ! 
I am certain that he will not drink, and we shall be 
so happy. Oh! I am the happiest woman alive!" 

"Well! well!" I said, "let us hope for the best; 
we must wait and see. Mitchell, remember the 
2d of next August — Bartlett's — and in the mean 
time no whiskey !" And so we parted. 

I bought, took an assignment of the mortgage and 



THE STORY OF MITCHELL SABATTIS. 153 

carried it to my home. Other duties occupied me, 
and Sabattis had long been out of my mind. One 
evening late in the following February, just at night- 
fall, I was watching the falling snow from my library 
window in Burlington, when a singular conveyance 
stopped almost in front of my door. It was a long, 
unpainted sled, the runners hewn from natural crooks, 
with stakes some five feet high inclosing an oblong 
box of rough boards, to which were harnessed two 
unmatched horses. The driver travelled by the side 
of the horses, carrying a long gad of unpainted 
wood having no lash. He wore a cap and coat of 
bear-skin, which concealed his features. 

Taking him to be some stranger who had lost his 
way, I went to his assistance. As I made some ob- 
servation, a voice deep down inside the bear-skin 
said : " Why ! it's Mr. Chittenden. I was looking 
for you and your house." 

" Mitchell Sabattis !" I exclaimed. " In the name 
of all that is astonishing, what are you doing here?" 

For a moment he made no answer. As I came 
nearer his arms worked strangely, as if he would like 
to throw them around me. His voice was tremulous 
as he said : " I am so glad. I was afeared I should 
not find you — this town is so big and there are so 
many houses and men and roads. I was looking for 
a place where they would feed and take in the 
horses." 

" But what has brought you here, a hundred and 
fifty miles from your home in Newcomb?" 

"Yes! yes! We have been very lucky this fall 
and winter. My wife said I had better come. I 
have had good fortune. Sold all my furs and my 
saddles of venison for money. Just now the season 



154 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

is over and I had nothing to do. So we talked it 
over, my wife Bessie and me. You remember 
Bessie. Somehow I can't get the right words. I 
would like to tell you to-morrow. Do you know of 
some place where they would take in the horses?" 

"But what is this sled loaded with?" 

" Nothing — •much. Only a little game for you. I 
will tell you all about it to-morrow." 

I went with him to a stable where his horses were 
taken in and his load put under lock and key. I took 
him to my house, although he protested that he had 
his own supplies and could just as well stay in the 
stable. His personal neatness, his civility, and the 
oddity of his expressions delighted every member of 
my household. A warm supper and a like welcome 
soon opened his heart, and I gathered from him the 
following details : 

Good fortune had attended him from the time 
when he was relieved from anxiety about the mort- 
gage. He had employment as a guide until the sea- 
son for trapping and shooting for market began. He 
had never killed so many deer nor got so good prices 
in money for venison. He had paid all his little debts 
and saved one hundred dollars, which his wife said he 
ought to bring to me. They thought I would like a 
little game. So he had built a sled, borrowed two 
horses, made up a little load, and he had travelled 
that long and hard road from the head of Long 
Lake to Crown Point and thence to Burlington, not 
less than one hundred and fifty miles. 

A refusal of his gift was not to be thought of. 
The next morning I took my butcher to his little 
load of game. There were the saddles or hind quar- 
ters of twenty-five fat deer in their skins, two car- 



THE STORY OF MITCHELL SABATTIS. 155 

casses of black bear dressed and returned to their 
skins, the skin of a magnificent catamount, with the 
skull and claws attached, which he had heard me say 
I would like to have, a half-dozen skins of the beau- 
tiful fur of the pine marten or the American sable, 
more than one hundred pounds of brook trout, ten 
dozen of ruffed grouse all dressed and braided into 
bunches of a half-dozen, and some smaller game, with 
some specimen skins of the mink and fox. There 
was more game than my family could have con- 
sumed in a year. 

I selected a liberal supply of the game and took the 
skins intended for myself and family. For the bal- 
ance my butcher paid him liberally, and this money 
with his savings would have more than paid his 
mortgage. But I would not so soon lose my hold 
upon him. He had told me that if he could build 
an addition to his house his wife could keep four 
boarders while he was guiding in the summer. I 
induced him to save money enough for this addition, 
and to purchase the furniture then and there. He 
paid the interest and costs and a part of the princi- 
pal of his mortgage, and went home loaded with 
presents for Bessie and the children — a very happy 
man. 

On the 2d of August, this time with two gen- 
tlemen and their wives, all safe companions in rough- 
ing it, as we approached the landing at Bartlett's, 
Mitchell and Alonzo were waiting for us. There 
was no need to ask Mitchell if lie had kept his prom- 
ise. His eye was as clear and keen as that of a 
goshawk. The muscles visible in their action under 
his transparent dark skin, his voice, ringing with 
cheerfulness, all told of a healthy body and a sound 



156 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

mind. His wife, he said, had her house filled with 
boarders, his oldest son had been employed as a guide 
for the entire season, and prosperity shone upon the 
Sabattis household. 

Where should we go? I consulted him about the 
location of our camp. He said that " 'Lon" and him- 
self knew what kind of a place we wanted. We 
didn't want visitors or black flies — we wanted a 
beautiful location, with mountains, lakes, brooks, 
and springs, with abundance of game. Himself and 
" 'Lon" knew such a place — they had left home, built 
a camp for us there, and if we would make a long 
day of it they would row us there at once. 

This chapter is already too long. I have no time 
to tell of the beauty of our camp, the abundance of 
the game, the sympathy of all our party, the fawn 
we caught, tamed and enjoyed, and left in its native 
woods, and the fidelity of our guides which made 
those weeks a green oasis in all our lives. Nor can 
I describe the subsequent lives of those guides. 
Wetherby, one of the strongest men I ever knew and 
of unexceptionable habits, died of a fever in the fol- 
lowing year. 

My destiny led me far away from the Adiron- 
dacks. The last I had heard from Mitchell was 
when he sent me a draft on New York for considera- 
bly more than the balance due upon his mortgage. 
The locality had become too easy of access — visitors 
were too numerous. It had so few attractions that 
I did not visit it for many years. But in 1885 the 
old feeling came over me, and with such of my 
family as had not gone out from me into homes of 
their own, I went to a new and fashionable hotel 
some thirty miles from Long Lake. From an old 



THE STORY OF MITCHELL SABATTIS. 157 

resident who knew it thoroughly I had the subse- 
quent history of Mitchell Sabattis. He had never 
broken his promise to me. He united with the Meth- 
odist Church and became one of its leaders, and in a 
few years was the leading citizen in the Long Lake 
settlement. In worldly matters he prospered. His 
wife kept a favorite resort for summer visitors. 
Their children were educated, the daughters married 
well — two of the sons served their country with cour- 
age and gallantry through the war, returned home 
un wounded with honorable discharges, and now 
guided in summer and built the celebrated Adiron- 
dack boats in the winter. Mitchell, now a hale and 
healthy veteran of eighty-four years, still lived at 
Long Lake in the very house of which I was once the 
mortgagee. 

The next morning I heard a light step on the un- 
carpeted hall and a knock at my door. I opened it 
and Sabattis entered. He was as glad to see me as I 
was to grasp his true and honest hand. But I was 
profoundly surprised. Had the world with him 
stood still? He did not look a day older than when 
I last saw him, more than twenty-five years ago. 
The same keen, clear eye, transparent skin with the 
play of the muscles under it, the same elastic step, 
ringing voice and kindly heart. His eye was not 
dim nor his natural force abated. We spent a 
memorable day together — at nightfall we parted 
forever. Not long afterward he died full of years, 
full of honors, that noblest work of God, an honest 
man. 

Reader ! this is not a " short story" and it is not 
a novel. It is a true story, and of course has its 
moral, which is that a kind word or an inexpensive 



158 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

favor may sometimes save a fellow-creature and 
change him into a useful man. To him who be- 
stows either, I could not wish a more delightful 
memory than that of my relations with Mitchell 
Sabattis. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

The Adirondack Region — A Warning to the 
Destroyer — A Plea for the Perishing. 

The Adirondack region is an uneven plateau, hav- 
ing an average elevation about eighteen hundred feet 
above the sea-level, in area nearly equal to the three 
States of New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachu- 
setts. Its crystalline rocks preceded, its sandstones 
witnessed the dawn of animal life upon the Western 
Continent. Its mountains are loftier than any east 
of the Father of the Waters. Its rivers are num- 
bered by fifties, its lakes by hundreds. Away back 
in primordial times the forces of nature raised its 
surface into the dominion of monthly frosts, unfitted 
it for agriculture and pasturage, and restricted it to 
the growth of evergreens and deciduous trees, dwarfed 
upon its peaks but reaching an average height in its 
valleys and on its sheltered plains. God made it, 
not for the habitation of man but for that of the 
natural occupants of the forest, lake, and river. In 
his economy it was most useful to man when its 
original condition was maintained. If the great 
cities of a numerous people were to be built on the 
waterways of a mighty commerce, all the greater 
necessity that here should be a great preserve in 
fact as well as in name. It was the natural home of 
all the land and fresh-water animals of the forty- 
fifth parallel. The call of the great moose was com- 

159 



100 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

mon in the swamps and marshes — the red deer would 
have exhausted the grasses and tender shrubs had 
not their numbers been repressed by the panther and 
the gray wolf. The black bear fattened upon the 
beechnuts. The industrious beaver built his dam 
upon streams fished by the mink and the otter. The 
fisher, the pine marten, the fox and other fur-bearing 
animals ranged the more elevated lands; ducks and 
geese of many species and other migratory birds 
made their semi-annual visits, and some remained to 
raise their young. The partridge drummed upon the 
fallen tree-trunks, flights of passenger-pigeons ob- 
scured the sun. The lunge fattened on the fresh- 
water shrimps, the savage pike and omnivorous 
pickerel pursued the beautiful brook trout up the 
silvery streams. The smaller animals and birds 
abounded. As a rural poet sang in those early 
days — 

"The pigeon, goose and duck, they fill our beds, 
The beaver, coon and fox, they crown our heads. 
The harmless moose and deer are food and clothes to wear, 
Nature could do no more for any land." 

In the economy of nature this region had another 
and an inestimable value. It was the water reser- 
voir for a part of the St. Lawrence and Champlain 
valleys, but especially for the Hudson River and the 
great cities which were to rise upon its banks. And 
it was as complete as the works of the Great Archi- 
tect always are. The vapors borne against the flanks 
of its numerous mountains were condensed and pre- 
cipitated in the daily rains of summer and the snows 
of winter. The surface was shaded and covered by 
forest trees everywhere throwing out rootlets, which, 



DESTRUCTION OF THE FOREST. 161 

penetrated and swollen by frosts, widened the crevices 
in the rocks below. The decaying leaves of succes- 
sive seasons spread a soft, thick cushion over the 
soil. The snows fell to great depths ; protected from 
wind and sun, they remained for a long time, and 
when they slowly dissolved followed every fibre and 
rootlet down to the lowest depths of every rock fis- 
sure or cavity. The soil became a gigantic sponge, 
saturated with moisture, expelling its surplus waters, 
not in destructive inundations, but by slow percola- 
tion, into the streams, maintaining them at full 
banks, and finally creating the noble river which 
might be navigated for sixty leagues by the navies 
of the world. 

Forty years ago was there no New York legislator 
who had heard of the Roman marshes, those deadly 
fever beds where once was grown the breadstuffs of 
Rome when she was mistress of the world? Was 
there no student of history who knew that where the 
Roman farmer bred his son to wield the Roman 
short-sword he would now perish b} T a night's ex- 
posure? Had no traveller seen the naked rocks after 
the vineyards of Southern France had been swept 
into the sea? Was there none who knew of the 
foresight of Holland when she made herself poor to 
build her dykes and control the waters of the North 
Sea? No! no! The pen hesitates to tell the story 
of their negligence or to record with what silly con- 
tempt they spurned, threw away, and refused to pre- 
serve the blessings of Almighty God. 

The vandalism originated in the Champlain Val- 
ley. Far up the Ausable, on a little stream that came 
down from the mountains, there was a small furnace 
which used charcoal as a fuel. The country black^ 
11 



162 . PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

smiths began to use its iron. It was almost as good, 
they said, as Swedish iron. They made it into horse- 
shoes ; then into nails for the horse-shoes. Then it 
was made into nails for ordinary building purposes, 
and there proved to be not an insignificant profit in its 
manufacture. 

The reputation of the charcoal iron spread, new 
furnaces were built, and the small village of Clinton- 
ville became the great nail factory of the north coun- 
ty. The smoke of coal-pits covered the land. The 
trees were swept away as if some gigantic scythe- 
bearer had mowed it over. In a few years there was 
no charcoal to be had at paying prices. Then the 
furnaces ceased operations, and where the forest had 
stood were huckleberry plains, where the berries 
were picked by Canadian-French habitans. One 
may travel now for miles in that region and not find 
a tree large enough to make a respectable fish-pole. 

Next came like an army of destruction the first in- 
vasion of the lumbermen. Pine lumber increased in 
value. These lands could be cheaply purchased at the 
sales for taxes, stripped of their accessible pines and 
then abandoned to the State for another tax sale. 
Only the best trees were felled; their tops and 
branches were left where they fell. The logs were 
run down to the mills in the high water of spring. 

The pines near the rivers were quickly exhausted. 
Then some enemy of the region put a scheme into 
the minds of the lumbermen, which resulted in in- 
calculable injury. It was to dam the outlets — raise 
the water in the lakes so as to reach the pines upon 
their shores. The first dam was upon tho Raquette 
River to raise the water in Big Tupper Lake. Dams 
at the outlet of Long Lake, Blue Mountain, Uta- 



DESTRUCTION OF THE FOREST. 1G3 

wanna, Raquette, and many others speedily followed. 
There was a noble grove of pines on the high west 
bank of Long Lake just above the outlet. The year 
after the dam was built their trunks had disap- 
peared. Their tops and branches were left on the 
ground to die and to decay. 

It has been stated elsewhere that the arboreal 
growth of the lakes quite down to the ordinary water- 
level constituted one of the principal beauties of the 
virgin landscape. The lake shores were generally 
precipitous and the natural rise and fall of the waters 
produced almost no effect upon the vegetation. The 
silvery waters everywhere appeared to be framed in 
a setting of vivid green. But there were places 
along the rivers as well as the lakes where there 
were marshes covered with trees, the surface of 
which was overflowed by a slight rise of the waters. 
When the dams were constructed the water was per- 
manently raised so as to overflow these marshes and 
a narrow piece of even the most precipitous shores. 
This permanent overflow destroyed the life of every 
tree and shrub where it existed. The setting of em- 
erald g^reen was replaced by dead trees which covered 
the marshes or stood around the lake, white and 
deathly, like armies of grinning skeletons, presiding 
over new sources of contamination and decay. 

Great injury to the whole region swiftly followed 
these obstructions. That caused by fires was the most 
extensive. The tree-tops and branches left by the 
lumbermen became dry and combustible. Careless 
visitors left the fires burning in their temporary 
camps, which spread over townships, destroying the 
whole arboreal growth. The fires followed the dry 
roots deep into the ground and rock crevices, and 



164 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

nothing but continuous rains that saturated the soil 
could extinguish them. Other fires were caused by 
lightning. The entire profits of the lumber would 
not have compensated for the injury caused by these 
conflagrations. 

This elevated region with its pure atmosphere had 
long been celebrated for its healthful influences. It 
would have been a great sanitarium but for gross 
violations of hygienic laws. Not long after the gen- 
eral obstruction of the streams, the scattered resi- 
dents and their families began to fall sick with 
typhoid and intermittent fevers. Many died. The 
local physicians declared that they could not under- 
stand the origin of these diseases. The cause w x as 
not far to seek. The broad acres covered with slack- 
water, the masses of organic matter left to ferment 
and putrefy beneath it, generating poisonous gases 
to corrupt the atmosphere, were such efficient causes 
of disease that it would have been a wonder if these 
fevers had not prevailed. They still prevail. They 
are epidemic every summer. During the last sum- 
mer, when the great stream of pleasure travel was 
traversing the region, it passed many hamlets of 
fever-stricken patients. And these fearful scourges 
will continue to sweep off the inhabitants and to be 
a menace to every visitor until the laws of nature 
are respected and the causes of these diseases are 
removed. 

The prospect of now preserving the Adirondack 
country to the uses of its creation, for which it is so 
admirably fitted, is very remote. The increased de- 
mand for spruce and hemlock lumber, for maple, ash, 
and other woods for the interiors of buildings, and 
the enormous consumption of wood pulp, are con- 



DESTRUCTION OF THE FOREST. 1G5 

stantly creating new demands upon the forest, mak- 
ing new appeals to human cupidity. But Nature 
never pardons, never fails to punish a violation of 
her laws. A time will come when some great 
calamity will fall upon the people and awaken their 
legislators to the necessity of protecting what shall 
then remain of this great preserve. 

I may have said enough; but my pen clings to 
the topic, and I do most deeply regret my inability 
to present the lessons of human experience in terms 
which, if they do not convince the casual reader, will 
at least arrest his attention. If I should say that 
unless the existing campaign of destruction is ar- 
rested the valley of the lower Hudson will become a 
desert and the site of New York City a bed of mala- 
ria upon which human life cannot exist, I should 
be called a thoughtless, unreliable, sensational 
writer ; yet that is just what I ought to say. With 
present means of transportation, in eight days I 
could take the reader to a country once of rare fertil- 
ity, where agriculture flourished, where stood the 
famous mart of Populona, where the coast was filled 
with commercial towns and their surroundings were 
occupied by a prosperous population, but where the 
sites of old cities have now not one inhabitant, where 
the coast is well-nigh depopulated, and where mala- 
rious fevers have extended their ravages far into the 
interior. Yet this region was once the garden of 
Europe, and but for the same criminal negligence of 
which our generation is guilty might have been as 
productive to-day as it was in the reign of Augustus 
Caesar. On the shores of Tuscany and the Adriatic 
— on the banks of the rivers from the Appenines to 
the Mediterranean Sea, and through the valleys of 



16G PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

Northern Switzerland, everywhere in older Europe, 
we may read a similar chapter in the book of nature. 
At first fertile table-lands, hillsides covered with 
vineyards, everywhere a healthy, prosperous people. 
Then the mountains first slowly encroached upon, 
then denuded of their covering. Floods and inun- 
dations before unknown came next in succession, 
sweeping the alluvium, the soil, and finally the 
gravel down toward the sea, spreading it into swamps 
and marshes, after which swiftly followed the famine 
and the pestilence. 

Nature is never in a hurry. In her movements 
she takes all the time that is necessary. One day is 
as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. 
In the Tuscan Maremma where the swallows retreat 
before the malaria, in Northern Italy where the 
peasant travels five miles for a back-load of wood, 
or in the American forests just producing the first 
crop of fevers, there is one result which follows the 
destruction of the forest which no observing man 
can fail to notice. Is there any man of three-score 
years who does not know that the rivers of New 
England have diminished one-half in volume since his 
boyhood? The Connecticut by carrying around the 
falls was navigable to Hanover, N. H. The "Wi- 
nooski will not float a skiff now over the spot where 
the Black Snake, a fiftj'-ton batteau, had its fight 
with the officers of the customs in 1808. During 
the Revolution a British admiral proposed to anchor 
his ships of war in the Bronx, now a mei*e rivulet 
which forms one of the boundaries of New York City. 
The poet Bryant once gave a marked instance of 
this diminution of rivers. He wrote : " It is a com- 
mon observation that our summers are become drier 



DESTRUCTION OF THE FOREST. 107 

and our streams smaller. Take the Cuyahoga as 
an illustration. Fifty years ago large barges loaded 
with goods went up and down that river, and one of 
the vessels engaged in the battle of Lake Erie was 
built at Old Portage, six miles north of Albion, and 
floated down to the lake. Now, in an ordinary 
stage of the water, a canoe or a skiff can hardly pass 
down the stream." 

The Hudson, the Mohawk, and the Raquette 
rivers are already greatly diminished in volume, 
and the Adirondack region is thickly sown with the 
germs of febrile disease. Taking things in their 
present condition, let us turn the mirror of experience 
so that it will reflect the future, and consider the 
image. Existing encroachments all around the per- 
iphery of the region are continued, clearing the sur- 
face, which for a time will yield indifferent pasturage 
until the thin soil is washed from the rocks, when it 
will become worthless. New companies of lumber- 
men will range over the whole, felling every ever- 
green above ten inches in diameter. They may give 
some attention to the public demand in felling the 
trees and disposing of the tops and branches. But 
they will find it necessary to raise the dams and flood 
a still greater extent of the lowlands in order to 
reach forests more remote. Forest fires will multiply 
as the supply of dry fuel increases. Wood-pulp mills 
will abound on every considerable stream. Summer 
hotels will increase with the railroads which will 
follow the valle} T s, and as these hotels are built with 
little regard to sanitary laws, wherever one exists 
it will be a source of contamination to the water 
and of malaria on the land. Increasing crowds of 
tourists, of artists, of persons who think they are 



168 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

sportsmen, will infest the country during the summer, 
and the poor victims of pulmonary disease will come 
to it in the winter to sicken and die. How long it will 
be before the atmosphere of the Adirondack swamps 
will be fever-stricken like the Pontine marshes is not 
very material to know, for that time will surely come. 

Suppose in the more distant perspective should be 
seen a great city comprising the New York of the 
twentieth century and its surroundings. By that time 
its demands will become peremptory. Unrestricted 
immigration; huge blocks of cheaply constructed 
and badly ventilated tenement-houses will have be- 
come hives of the lowest orders of humanity. " Un- 
clean, unclean," will be the language of the streets 
and of the municipal administration. The daily 
harvest of death will be greater than in the famine, 
fever stricken regions of India and China. But 
louder and more imperious will be the demand for a 
pure water-supply. Then the great crime of 1892, 
perpetrated without even attracting public notice, will 
have fructified. The impounding of the precipitation 
of the Croton watershed in a huge artificial lake, 
where the waters have no currents and every organic 
substance sinks to the bottom to and die decaj T , where 
every drop of the water will be contaminated, will 
result in a harvest of death which must continue un- 
til the lower Hudson Valley has been abandoned and 
human negligence has sought other channels of ex- 
ploitation. 

I know only too well that these words of warning 
will fall upon incredulous and unwilling ears ; but they 
are spoken in all seriousness by one who appreciates 
their necessity and who ventures a hope that they may 
yet attract some small measure of public attention. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

November Days on Lake Champlain — The 
Story of Hiram Bramble. 

On a recent summer vacation an intelligent book- 
seller sent to me two very delightful books, written 
by Mr. Rowland Robinson, of Ferrisburgh, Vt., 
under the titles of " Uncle 'Lisha's Shop " and " Sam 
Lovell's Camp." The dialects reproduced by Mr. 
Robinson — Vermont Yankee by several characters 
and Canuck-French by Ant-Twine Bissette — are ex- 
cellent, much the most successful I have seen. 

In reading these books, it occurred to me that if 
Mr. Robinson could imagine incidents enough to 
make a book out of the experiences of a fishing- 
camp at the mouth of Little Otter Creek in the out- 
season month of June, a true relation of some of my 
own experiences in a neighboring region, on East 
Creek and Bullwagga Ba3 T , might be equally enter- 
taining to the reading public. For there are few 
square acres of that creek and bay, including the nar- 
row lake from Chimney Point to Ticonderoga, that I 
have not been rowed over by one of nature's original 
characters, more or less in company with one of the 
best shots and most entertaining companions who 
ever pulled a trigger or winged a "pintail." Oh, 
what sport we had on those long-past November 
days ! Here are some of their memories. 

Hiram Bramble, or, as his neighbors called him, 
169 



170 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

"Old Bramble," was an original character. He 
lived in a log house on the high south bank of East 
Creek, in Orwell, a half mile above its mouth. He 
was skilled in wood and water craft — many were 
the flocks of different species of water-fowl within 
shot of which he has rowed or paddled an eminent 
American diplomat and myself in those days of 
long ago. Bramble loved us well enough to have 
gone through fire to serve us if we had made such a 
demand upon him. He gave us great sport and we 
rewarded him, as he thought, royally. He was him- 
self a successful hunter, but he was disinclined to 
waste his ammunition upon birds on the wing, a 
style of shooting in which he became skilful under 
our instruction. 

Bramble had a wife when we knew him — a second 
Mrs. Bramble. He was poor and sometimes dissi- 
pated, but whenever he spoke of his first wife his 
voice was tremulous, and he had a habit of brushing 
something out of his eyes. Those who knew them 
said he always treated her with the affection of a 
loving husband and the courtesy of a gentleman by 
nature until she was laid away under the green turf 
of the Orwell churchyard, under a little mound 
planted with roses, and even then very carefully 
tended. When she died Bramble was captured by a 
masculine widow with a voice like a bark-mill and 
the temper of a demon. She did not like either my 
companion or myself. She always spoke of us as 
" them rascal Burlington lawyers " who paid Bram- 
ble to be idle, lazy, and drunk. I think she was im- 
partial, for she abused every one who gave Bramble 
any employment. 

How well I remember the day when I accepted 



THE STORY OF HIRAM BRAMBLE. 171 

the invitation of a friend, afterward an honor to his 
country, to go with him on a shooting excursion to 
East Creek ! He, I am sure, will recall our first visit 
to this locality — our trip on the steamer tkrough 
the beautiful lake ; our sumptuous dinner ; our land- 
ing at Orwell, where Bramble was waiting for us, 
and those two days which followed, of which I 
hesitate to give, at this late day, the details. 

Bramble had made the plans for our afternoon and 
evening. The teal, both kinds, were just coming 
from the north. The best stations were on the bank 
at the mouth of the creek — the best time, the last 
hour of daylight. One of us, he said, would go with 
him to his boat, which lay up the creek, where it was 
nearest to the highway, and he would row us down 
toward its mouth. We might pick up a stray duck 
or two on the way. P. would take the short cut 
through the woods to the mouth of the creek, and in 
the wood which he would go through scare up one or 
two ruffed grouse and possibly an English snipe or 
a gray squirrel. 

I went with Bramble. As we came to the bank 
near the highway bridge, under which he had 
moored his boat, a mallard drake rose sluggishly 
from the opposite shore, fifty yards away. He was 
turned over with a No. 4 Eley's wire cartridge from 
the right barrel of my muzzle-loader ; breech-loaders 
being then unknown. "He's a goner," said Bram- 
ble as he launched his boat. I took my seat in its 
stern ; he rowed across and picked up the duck and 
said : 

" We don't want to hurry. We've two good hours 
before the ducks begin to come in — two hours at 
least. Did Squire P. ever tell you about Mr. B., 



172 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

that he brought down here last year? Well, he was 
a terror, he was. Every time anything with wings 
got up, bang! bang! went both of his barrels. He 
never hit anything because there was never anything 
in front of his gun. When we picked up Squire P. 
I told him that I didn't think I ought to row his 
friend any more unless he would be responsible for 
his accidents, the same as the town was for an ac- 
cident on a road which was out of repair. Some day 
his friend would shoot the top of my head off, and 
somebody ought to be good for the damages !" 

We rowed leisurely down the creek. I then knew 
nothing of Bramble's home or household. As we 
came around a sharp bend in the creek, I saw on the 
top of the next high point of land a small house. A 
person in female dress came out of the door and 
made an angry stride toward the bank. Her arms 
were swinging like those of a windmill. She was 
shouting something at the top of her voice, in which 
I could only distinguish the words " Old Bramble " 
and "rascally Burlington lawyers." She was ap- 
parently addressing her observations to us. 

"Who is that woman?" I demanded of Bramble, 
somewhat peremptorily. 

"Judge," he answered very seriously, "I know all 
the creeturs that ever lived in these parts — some ov 
'em I would not care to meet in the night, but I can 
truly say that I ain't af eared of none of 'em. Now 
that there woman" (pointing to where she seemed to 
have reached the climax of her gymnastics) — "that 
woman is the only thing on this 'vairsal 'arth that 
I'm afraid of; that's Mrs. Bramble, my wife!" 

"I am surprised, Bramble," I said. "I thought 
you were a brave man — not afraid of anything." 



THE STORY OF HIRAM BRAMBLE. 173 

" No more did I. I have choked a bull-dog to 
death that went mad. I stopped a runaway team, 
with a man's wife and children in the buggy, and 
the owner wanted to pay me four shillin' for it, 
when he knew it put my arm out of joint. I was 
never scairt by a ghost nor a jack-o'-lantern ; but 
when that woman goes for me in one of her tan- 
trums, the pluck runs out of me like cider out of a 
cheese of ground apples in a cider-mill. She is a 
devil — a full-grown, heaped-up, four-pecks-to-the- 
bushel she-devil, with a tongue like a fish-spear. I 
don't guess — I know." 

"Never mind," I said, "I will manage her!" 
Bramble looked at me with admiration. I remembered 
how O'Connell silenced the fish woman. I could not 
recall his mathematical terms, but I could try her with 
linguistics. As the boat neared the house I laid 
down my gun, took off my coat, and flourishing my 
arms began with a quotation from Virgil, in the clos- 
ing words of which I put great emphasis, and, so far 
as I knew them, the motions of a prize-fighter. The 
vixen hesitated. This species of warfare was new. 
Then she resumed : " You drunken, good-for-nothing 
Old Bramble ! Wait till I get you home once more !" 
" Carramba ! Mille tonnerre ! Habeas corpus. Ille 
ego qui quondam !" I shouted. " Sine qua non, sink 
or swim, I am for Bramble !" I was too much f oi- 
lier. " He's one of them college chaps," I heard her 
say. "They meet with the devil every week; but 

when I get you alone, Old Bramble " Here I 

took up my gun, and, pointing to the house, fired 
some other nonsense at her in a sepulchral voice. 
She retreated into the habitation. Bramble was in 
ecstasies. He "must learn them words," he said. 



174 PEESONAL REMINISCENCES. 

He "didn't suppose, until now, that anything but 
death would silence Mrs. Bramble." 

I may as well here record the fact that my com- 
panion, "Squire P.," did actually frighten her 
upon a subsequent occasion. Bramble was rowing 
him down the creek, when, as usual, she shouted at 
him her characteristic observations. He directed 
Hiram to row him up to her carefully, and when 
within shot he pretended to aim at her and fired. 
She really thought he was shooting at her and 
rushed into her cabin. "By Jove! Bramble, I have 
missed her with both barrels," he said, in a tone of 
vexation. " I don't understand it. I never had a 
fairer shot." 

"You was too sartin! 1 saw you was too sartin," 
said Bramble. " There is more shots lost by being 
too sartin than any other way." However, the 
vixen was tamed. She never attacked him again. 



CHAPTER XIX. 
Duck-Shooting in East Creek. 

There was a full hour of daylight when we 
reached the outlet of East Creek. My companion 
was already there. He had picked up a pair of 
English snipe and a ruffed grouse on his way from 
the Orwell Landing. Bramble stationed us on the 
high bank on the south side where the creek entered 
the lake, I being nearest to the mouth, where there 
was no obstruction to the view. " You must hold a 
long way ahead," he cautioned me. "These birds 
travel very fast." The teal in small bunches began 
to arrive. I missed the three and P. his two first 
shots. " You must either wait until they get past or 
hold furder ahead of them," counselled the old 
guide. " You have no idee how fast a teal can travel 
when he is in a hurry. They have begun to come in 
so airly that there is liable to be a good many of 
them before dark. They fly quicker'n pigeons and 
swallows. You must hold furder ahead or you 
won't drop a bird." "How far ahead?" I asked. 
" About four rod, I reckon," was his reply. 

A single speck was now coming from the north. 
I watched its approach and understood the rapidity 
of its flight. This time I waited until it was well 
past me. The bird fell at the shot. " I will get into 
the boat now and pick up the game," said Hiram. 
" You have got the hang of the creeturs now and we 
will have teal for supper." 

175 



176 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

The policy of waiting until the bird had passed 
was not new to either of us. We had shot passenger- 
pigeons and swallows. I did not suppose that any- 
thing with feathers came any nearer to lightning in 
rapidity, of flight; but these teal surpassed them. 
However, we had now learned their ways. There 
were few more misses, and as long as we could see 
we kept Hiram and "Bang," our Irish setter, busily 
occupied in retrieving our birds. 

We counselled with Hiram whether we should stay 
over night at Orwell or Chimney Point. The dis- 
tance was about the same, and we intended to be on 
the ground at daylight for the morning shooting. 
Bramble decided upon Orwell Landing. " The last 
time I was at the other place," he said, "there was 
a steak so tough that it could not be carved unless 
both hands and one foot were on the table. " 

We went to the landing, where a good supper was 
soon ready, which we insisted Bramble should share 
with us. He did so, by way of obeying orders rather 
than from choice. He was a light eater and was 
drawing aw r ay from the table before we had half 
finished our meal. " Don't leave yet, Bramble," said 
P. " You have eaten almost nothing. Have another 
piece of this turkey. He belongs to this generation." 
Hiram submissively obeyed, remarking sotto voce: 
"I really s'posed I had had enough, but I'm an 
ignorant man, and what I know is mostly about birds 
and wild animals good for game ; but 3'ou have been 
eddycated at college and know 'most eveiwthing. If 
you saj r I have not finished my supper, of course it 
must be so. Now I shall eat till you tell me to stop," 
he said with apparent seriousness. 

Like all good things the supper came to an end. 



DUCK SHOOTING IN EAST CREEK. 177 

We had left our boots and rubber coats at the hotel 
where we landed. "I want them long boots of 
yours," said Bramble. "They need a dressing of 
neatsfoot oil. I want you to be ready for what's 
coming. There is more kinds of ducks in the 
marshes than I have seen in ten years, and not a gun 
has been fired over them. It will rain to-morrow, I 
cal'late — not hard, but a kind of drizzle that will keep 
the birds in the marshes. If you put up a flock of 
black duck in a clear day they won't stop this side 
of Long Island. But to-morrow they will lay close. 
I don't suppose airything less alarmin' than the voice 
of my wife would start 'em out. I want you to have 
a day to-morrow that you will remember as long as 
you live. We ought to be at the mouth of the creek 
03' daylight to-morrow morning." 

We surrendered our guns and boots to Hiram, who 
well knew how to put them in order. By ten o'clock 
we were enjoying that dreamless sleep which only 
hunters know, out of which Bramble aroused us with 
some difficulty at a very early hour next morning. 
We fortified ourselves with a cup of hot coffee and a 
light breakfast, and set out, Bramble carrying, as 
I thought, abundant rations for three days. 

As we approached the creek the quack of many 
ducks came to us through the foggy atmosphere. 
Hiram declared that they were caucusing whether to 
go south to-da} r and " most of the speeches were agin' 
it." He advised us to take our stands of the pre- 
vious evening. He said that until the sun came out 
the ducks would'stick close to the creek and we would 
be able to select our birds. "We don't want no 
sawbills," he said, "nor coots nor old squaws. Most 
any other kind will do. Canvas-backs and red- 
12 



178 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

heads come here, but not plenty. They are good, 
but not a bit toothsomer than a young, well-grown 
black duck or the little butter-balls. I am going 
outside into the marshes in my boat. After daylight 
you will hear my gun, and soon after you will see 
something fly up the creek, and it won't be stake- 
drivers neither. Bang will have to do your re- 
trievin'." 

We were on our stands before the sun made any 
effort to pierce the fog which covered lake and creek, 
and which was so dense that we heard the quack- 
ing of the birds long before they were visible. Soon 
we heard the roar of Bramble's gun far out upon the 
marsh. It was our signal to watch. A number of 
dark spots were coming toward us through the mist. 
They got three of our barrels, and with a joyous yelp 
Bang dashed clown the bank into the water and 
brought out first one and then another black or dusky 
duck. We had scarcely loaded our guns before the 
same flock returned, flying nearly over our heads. 
Two birds fell on the bank almost at our feet. Bang 
had brought out a third, making five birds from our 
opening fire. 

With such a beginning so early in the da}^, we ex- 
pected by nightfall to have achieved the success of 
our lives. But sportsmen, like politicians, are some- 
times deceived by flattering prospects. The sun was 
above the fogs struggling to pierce them. First a 
small white spot appeared in the east. It grew larger 
and the first sunbeam shone upon the water. In a 
few minutes, as if a great curtain had been with- 
drawn, the silvery lake, its green shores and greener 
islands, the distant Adirondacks with Tahawus tow- 
ering above them, lay before us like a picture. Then 



DUCK-SHOOTING IN EAST CREEK. 179 

from every little bay and sheltered place the ducks 
took wing. They circled in the air as if to find their 
bearings, and then straight as an arrow's flight took 
their course southward and disappeared from our 
view. Two little buffel-heads or butter-balls, scarcely 
larger than quails, started up the creek. They were 
the last which, on these stands, fell to our guns. 

Bramble now came to us with his boat. " What 
were we to do now?" we asked. "Anything you 
like, " he said, " for you will see no more ducks here 
until nightfall." We might go over to Ti' Creek, 
he said, where there had been no shooting. We 
could also go through a piece of woods which he 
pointed out, where there were two or three broods of 
well-grown partridges, and he would row the boat up 
the lake and meet us at the landing. 

We followed his advice. We struck through a 
piece of first-growth beech and maple, where the leaves 
had fallen, and as the sun dried the dampness the 
autumnal fragrance was delicious. We had little 
time to breathe it, however, for as soon as we entered 
the wood Bang made a dead point, and, ordered on, 
he put up a covey of partridges. With that whirring 
sound that always stirs the blood of a true sportsman, 
they radiated like the spokes of a wheel from its hub. 
I got the line of one, but was not quick enough for a 
second. My companion was more deliberate. After 
the fall of his first bird, he turned and caught the 
second by a sixty-} T ard shot in the opposite direction. 
Within a half -hour the rest of the brood, six birds 
in all, were in our bags. As we came out of the 
woods to the lake shore, Bang at once informed us 
that we were near other game-birds. He was an 
intelligent and thoughtful animal. His language 



180 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

was not vjocal, but was as well understood as if he 
had been able to speak. He began to quarter a belt 
of rushes, so tall that we could follow him only by 
the waving of his bushy tail. As he crossed an 
opening he came to a point before a tussock of grass. 
"What is it, Bang?" I asked. He looked back, saw 
that my gun was ready, made a step or two forward, 
when with the note, "seep — seep," so seldom heard, 
two English snipe were flushed and one of them fell. 
Then followed what I have only seen upon one other 
occasion. Instead of going off at a tangent the re- 
maining bird rose in a circular flight, uttering his 
"seep — seep." He was answered by others, which 
rising described similar circles until there were a 
dozen in the air. We got in our four barrels upon 
those that were within range, when the whole flock 
started together in a southerly direction. We well 
knew that snipe-shooting for the day in that locality 
was ended. 

We reached the hotel in time for the twelve-o'clock 
dinner, after which we laid out our work for the 
afternoon. P. with Bramble was to go to another 
creek just below the old fort at Ticonderoga, where 
no guns had been heard, and whence if any ducks 
were started they would probably fly down the lake 
to East Creek. I, with a French neighbor of Bram- 
ble's, was to take my chances under a point which 
projected into the lake from the Vermont shore about 
half-way between the two creeks. 

We left the landing, going in opposite directions. 
P. had passed out of view around a bend of the lake, 
when my Frenchman, who was rowing with his face 
to the south, exclaimed: "Voila! Canards! can- 
ards!" Turning, I saw a small flock of broadbills 



DUCK-SHOOTING IN EAST CREEK. 181 

coming from that direction, and two of them fell be- 
fore I heard the report of P. 's gun. The four remain- 
ing birds came on, flying well apart. Standing in 
the boat, I dropped the only one that came within 
reach. The Frenchman exclaimed : " Load him you 
gun so quick you nevaire can. Maybe he come back 
dis way." And come that way they did, two birds 
flying so high that I scarcely supposed they could be 
reached. But one fell with a broken wing, and Bang 
caught it in the water after a lively pursuit. The 
other was killed by P., making the entire number of 
that little flock. 

There were no birds in Ti' Creek, though P. man- 
aged to pick up a couple on his way back to the land- 
ing. I remained at my post until nightfall and was 
beaten by one bird. For supper we had some of our 
3'oung birds roasted. We retired early, for we were 
very weary and had planned for an earl} T start, so as 
to reach Bullwagga Bay in the morning as soon as 
it was light enough to see a bird on the wing. 



CHAPTER XX. 
A Cold Morning on Bullwagga Bay. 

We loved the sport in those days of youth and 
vigor, or we would not have endured the hardships 
of the next day. We were called at three o'clock in 
the morning. It was so cold that the falling rain 
threatened to turn into snow. Bramble and P. 
looked after themselves. I was seated in the stern of 
the little Frenchman's boat. His teeth were chat- 
tering and he observed that " le matin vas leetle beet 
froid, vat you say cold, but the sun mak' more hot 
bam-by." Sharp work at the oars restored his cir- 
culation, and vigorous use of the paddle did the same 
for mine. The bay lies between the peninsula of 
Crown Point and the New York shore. We landed 
well south of the extreme point. For the last half- 
mile the loud quacking of the ducks across the pen- 
insula indicated that they were holding a debate in 
unlimited numbers. Suddenly Frenchy stopped. 
" I tink I be fool pretty bad," he said. v Dat all one 
famlee, les canards noir. " " You mean black ducks?" 
I asked. "Dat ees eet, dat ees eet," he exclaimed. 
" Black duck — canards noir. He fly all one way, all 
one time. Bam-by quand le soleil, le sun come — 
zweet, he all gone quick, you don't see no more dis 
day." 

I gathered from his jargon that at daylight the 
flock would all leave. Bramble was of the same 

182 



A COLD MORNING ON BULLWAGGA BAY. 183 

opinion. We decided to land and draw our boats 
over to the bay. Then we could at least get in all 
our barrels when they rose. We crossed the land 
and were fortunate enough, in the darkness, to find 
a shelter of rough boards covered with branches 
which some one had constructed for a blind to shoot 
from. There we shivered, Bang the coldest of the 
party, and waited for the dawn. The noisy quack- 
ing of the ducks indicated that the} 7- were not more 
than fortj 7 or fifty yards away. It was loud enough 
to render our steps inaudible and indicated their 
presence in great numbers. Their proximity stirred 
our blood so that we did not quite perish with the 
cold. 

The antics of Frenchy were amusing. " He's got 
more as ten tousan' black ducks on de bay," he 
whispered; "mais, he's de meanes' duck for stay you 
never see it. You shoot one tarn — he's gone for 
Wite Hall, you don't nevaire see him some more. 
He's got one sacre ole duck on de watch-out dis 
minute — more as feefteen year old. He know so 
much as man, dat ole duck — he see, he hear, he 
smell. Af de wind blow nudder way he smell you 
an' pff ! he go quick. You shoot queek's yer see one 
duck. Put you gun on dis leetle hole — da's de way ; 
you get one shot — no more, aujourd'hui." 

Did you ever see a flock of ducks asleep on the 
water? It is a very funny sight, especially when 
the wind blows their bodies in contact and wakes 
them to an angry quacking. As the light slowly in- 
creased we first made out a piece of open water in- 
front of the blind, surrounded by rushes ; then dark 
patches upon the water came into view which seemed 
to be moving. These were the ducks asleep, not- 



184 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

withstanding the quacking all around them. We 
arranged to fire the first barrel from the inside of the 
blind, then to step outside and fire as they rose. It 
was now light enough and we gave them the first 
two barrels. When we stepped outside it was a land 
rustling, if not shadowy with wings. All over the 
bay there was a sound like the rushing of a storm 
through the branches of a forest. I never heard the 
like before, I have never heard it since. As ar- 
ranged, we stepped outside and fired our second bar- 
rels into the thickest of the risen flock. 

Bang had obediently waited until he got the word. 
He now dashed into the water to retrieve the dead 
and wounded birds. I thought the Frenchman had 
gone crazy. He was leaping about and almost 
screaming: "Load you gun! load you gun! Don't 
you see ! Les canards he's start for Canada. He's 
mak' meestake. He come back. Ah, mon Dieu! 
Ah, load you gun two, tree, six times ! you get more 
ducks, plenty more !" 

We had shot from the southward of the entire flock, 
which had consequently first moved northward. 
What Frenchy meant was that the}" would return 
and go south. Then a breech-loader would have 
been invaluable. Return they did, but not before we 
had charged our barrels. We let the single birds 
pass, and when the thickest of the flock was almost 
over us we again fired the four barrels. " He is rain 
some snow, much more black duck, " shouted the 
Frenchman. " He's got no more black duck to-day," 
he said as the last of the flock went past. Bramble 
agreed with him. The last duck had risen from the 
bay and departed. Our duck-shooting for the day 
was over. 



A COLD MORNING ON BULLWAGGA BAY. 185 

We had left directions at Orwell that our game 
and traps should be put upon the steamboat going 
north that afternoon. When Bang had brought in 
all the dead and wounded we pulled over our boats 
and were rowed across the bay to Port Henry. 
There we dismissed Bramble and Frenchy liberall}" 
compensated and happy. On the arrival of the 
steamboat our game was exposed upon the forward 
deck, to the wonder of the surprised passengers. We 
reached our homes after an absence of two days and 
a few hours. 

How many birds were there collected in the two 
days? I have not mentioned the number for several 
reasons. Even two-score years ago, when game- 
birds of every species were thrice or four times as 
numerous as they are now, they were the most suc- 
cessful days of all my shooting. My companion has 
since risen to eminence and I would not like to have 
him annoyed by inquisitive correspondents or per- 
sonal inquirers, although I know that if called as a 
witness he is too true a sportsman to desert his friend. 
Finally, the shooting in every bay and around every 
marsh on that beautiful lake is now preserved at great 
expense, and the sportsman who haunts these preserves 
from morn till dewy eve, fortunate if at nightfall 
he can feel the weight of the birds in his game-bag, 
would find it difficult to believe that it required two 
porters to carry our game ashore from the steamer. 
Whether the story is attractive to them or to any 
member of the present generation, it warms my 
heart to know that there is one man living who will 
read with a thrill of delight this brief sketch of two 
November days. 



CHAPTER XXI. 
Quacks and Quackery. 

From ducks to quackery is an easy transition. 
" Quack" is said to be an onomatopoetic word, but I 
am unable to discover the slightest resemblance be- 
tween a boasting medical pretender and the language 
of the duck-pond. The duck is an honest fowl, con- 
servative in his ideas, using the language as well as 
preserving the habits of his ancestors. There is no 
justice nor propriety in associating him with a 
mountebank because of the sound of his mother 
tongue. 

It is amazing that quackery should not only sur- 
vive, but flourish in New England, where there is a 
newspaper in every family and an educated physician 
in every hamlet. I am not now referring to that form 
of it which finds expression in patent or proprietary 
medicines, for in most of those which attain any 
popularity there is some merit. I have in mind the 
more disreputable class which deals in charms, com- 
mands, and superstitions, the natural bone-setters, 
the seventh sons of seventh sons who claim to in- 
herit the gift of healing; who suppose that those are 
most capable of repairing the delicate machineiy of 
human life who are the most ignorant of its struct- 
ure and functions. It is incredible that such pre- 
tentious ignorance should be able to secure a foot-hold 
in an intelligent community. That it does, goes far 

186 



QUACKS AND QUACKERY. 187 

to prove the good old Presbyterian doctrine of the to- 
tal depravity of the human heart. An occurrence 
with which I was once invited to have something to 
do professionally will illustrate the impudence of the 
quack and the credulity of his victim. 

A farmer of average intelligence, in good circum- 
stances, was thrown from his wagon and suffered a 
compound fracture of his thigh-bone. An experi- 
enced country surgeon was called, who restored the 
parts to their places, dressed the limb in proper 
splints, and, with a suitable weight and pulley, ar- 
ranged to keep it extended until there was a firm 
union of the fragments of bone. He gave to the 
patient and his family very positive and emphatic 
instructions. The reparation would take a long time 
and involve some pain. Unless the farmer wished to 
leave his bed a cripple for life, with one leg some 
inches shorter than the other, he must endure the 
pain without taking off the weights or handling the 
limb in any way ; that if the extension was once re- 
laxed the cure would be difficult, perhaps impossible. 
As the surgeon lived several miles away, he should 
not visit him oftener than once a week, nor would 
more frequent visits be necessaiy if his instructions 
were obeyed. 

On his second visit the surgeon saw that his direc- 
tions had not been followed. After denials and pre- 
varications, the family confessed that the weights 
had been removed and the position of the body 
changed several times because the pain was greater 
than the farmer could endure. They had therefore 
relieved the pressure, removed the bandages, and 
bathed the limb with hot water and " Pond's Extract," 
which was popularly known as the " universal pain- 



188 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

killer." The doctor was indignant. He ridiculed 
the pretended inability of the patient, a strong man, 
to bear a pain which children could endure without 
complaint, repeated his directions with greater em- 
phasis, and declared that unless his advice was fol- 
lowed his farther attendance was useless, and that if 
upon his next visit he found that it had been disre- 
garded he would abandon the case and leave the 
patient to become a permanent cripple. 

Just at that time, drawn by a pair of the celebrated 
Morgan horses driven by a colored servant in livery, 
a very remarkable person, according to his own esti- 
mate, appeared and took a suite of rooms at the 
hotel in the county town. He wore a long cloak of 
dark velvet, with a crimson collar and trimmings, 
buckskin trousers, a vest of figured satin covering a 
ruffled shirt, made fast in the bosom by an enormous 
yellow diamond pin. Thus equipped and ornamented, 
he appeared before the modest dwelling of the farmer 
ready to guarantee his cure. His rule was " No cure, 
no pay," but this case had been so mismanaged by 
the country surgeon that he would make it an ex- 
ception. If the wounded farmer would execute and 
give to him his promissory note for twenty-five hun- 
dred dollars as an advance payment in the nature of 
a retaining fee, he would not only promise but would 
guarantee his cure. 

Of course the farmer accepted the conditions and 
signed the promissory note. There is a hypnotic 
control which these quacks can exercise which for 
the time is stronger than the judgment of their vic- 
tims. He did not even remove the dressings of the 
wounded limb. He made various motions over it, 
recited formulas in unknown tongues, declared that 



QUACKS AND QUACKERY. 189 

the cure would shortly be complete, pocketed his 
promissory note, and went in search of new vic- 
tims. 

The poor farmer had a distressing experience. 
The directions of the surgeon were no longer obeyed ; 
the splints and dressings of the limb were removed ; 
ulceration began, promoted by bathing the leg in hot 
water; there was no union of the fractured bones; 
new joints were formed at the fractures, and when 
he finally hobbled from his bed he was a permanent 
cripple, with a useless limb, condemned to the use 
of crutches for the remainder of his life. The quack 
visited him a few times, assured him that his direc- 
tions as a natural bone-setter had never failed, and 
that in the end his cure would be perfect. 

The promissory note was made payable at the 
Bank. On the day it matured it was pre- 
sented, payment was demanded, and the note was 
protested for non-payment. Suit was commenced 
upon it, and, as the unjust statutes of the State then 
permitted, all the horses, cattle, and personal prop- 
erty of the farmer were attached and about to be 
removed by the sheriff, when his neighbors volun- 
teered and gave an undertaking to pay any judgment 
which the quack should recover in the action. 

When the issues in the action came on to be tried 
the farmer was represented by one of the most skilful 
advocates at the bar. The quack would not pay 
counsel and intrusted his case to the attorney who 
had commenced the action. Instead of proving the 
execution of the note and resting his case, as he 
might have done, the attorney called the quack to the 
stand and proved by him the demand of payment 
and .the farmer's refusal to comply with the demand. 



190 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

His personal appearance on the witness-stand sug- 
gested a combination of a dancing-master and a 
mountebank. His velvet coat with scarlet ornamen- 
tation, his broad expanse of shirt the ruffles whereof 
were transfixed by the diamond pin, his velvet 
knee-breeches, silk stockings, pink gloves, and patent- 
leather shoes ; his hair bleached to a sickly yellow ; 
his long, waxed mustaches curled at the ends, sug- 
gested a comparison which would have been to the 
disadvantage of a monkey; his compressed mouth, 
pointed nose and chin gave him the expression of a 
rat, which did not at all comport with the air of lofty 
dignity which he attempted but failed to assume. 
Without waiting for a question, he launched out 
upon a story of his tremendous professional suc- 
cesses, the kings and great persons who had been his 
patients, and of his excuses for treating the farmer 
for so small a compensation, his regular fee for a 
broken leg being five thousand dollars! When he 
had damaged his case as much as he could by these 
improbable statements he was turned over to the 
farmer's counsel for cross-examination. 

"I will trouble you, doctor," said the counsel, "to 
name some patient who ever paid, or promised to 
pay, you a fee of five thousand dollars." 

"Must I answer such an insulting question?" said 
the doctor, appealing to the judge. 

" I think you must, " said the judge, " unless you 
plead your privilege." 

"Then I plead my privilege," he said promptly. 

"What do you mean by your privilege?" de- 
manded the counsel. 

" I mean my privilege to answer such questions as 
I choose." 



QUACKS AND QUACKERY. 191 

" Are you quite certain that you know what is the 
meaning of the privilege of a physician?" 

" I know everything that any doctor knows. " 

"That being the case, I will not pursue this in- 
quiry. Now will you kindly tell us what kind of a 
doctor you are?" 

" I am a universal doctor, sir. I cure all kinds of 
cases." 

"That is not precisely what I mean. To what 
school of medicine do you belong? I should have 
asked." 

" I don't belong to no school. I don't believe in no 
school. I'm a born doctor. I am a seventh son." 

" Now, doctor, pray gratify my curiosity and tell 
me whether you are a botanic, a hydropathic, an al- 
lopathic, or a homoeopathic ; what kind of a doctor 
3 T ou call yourself." 

" I don't know nothing about no paths, sir. I'm 
a universal doctor, only I don't use no markery." 

" I see ; you would be understood by your profes- 
sional brethren as an eclectic doctor, what the Japan- 
ese would call a very high-class doctor?" 

"Yes, that's it. I didn't understand you. I'm 
an eklektik doctor !" 

There was a hesitation, a slight pause after his 
pronunciation of the first syllable, which gave to the 
word the sound of "ecolectic," and proved to be the 
rock on which the quack was to suffer shipwreck. 
In his very gentle and kindly tone the counsel said : 

" Doctor, please give us the orthography of the 
word you have just used. I wish to be certain' about 
the professional position of a gentleman so eminent 
as yourself. Kindly tell us how you spell the kind 
of doctor you claim to be — an eclectic doctor. " 



193 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

The wily impostor hesitated, demurred, finally ob- 
jected. He did not claim to be a teacher of spelling; 
he never was a very good speller. He appealed to the 
court. Was he under any obligation to tell the counsel 
how to spell hard words? 

Judge Pierpont said he would be pleased to ac- 
commodate the witness, but, unfortunately, the 
counsel was insisting upon his clear legal right. If 
he pressed the question, the witness must tell the 
jury how to spell the word which described his pro- 
fession. 

The counsel insisted. If he was to pay $2,500 for 
the information his client wanted to know what kind 
of a doctor he had employed. 

"Then I'll be d— d if I tell him," burst out the 
doctor. " I will not be put on exhibition by any petti- 
fogging attorney !" 

" As you please," observed the judge. " Since you 
refuse to answer a proper question on cross-examina- 
tion, it is my duty to direct the jury to return a ver- 
dict for the defendant." 

" No ! no ! Don't do that !" exclaimed the mounte- 
bank. "I'll spell her — she's easy enough." He 
hastily muttered some unintelligible sounds, and 
said, "That's the way I spell her, sir." 

" Please stop, sir !" said the counsel in his gentle, 
but very decisive style. " Pronounce each letter and 
syllable distinctly so that they may be written down." 

The fellow stammered, hesitated, but determined 
to rely upon his impudence, which had so often car- 
ried him through difficulties. 

"I can spell her, sir," he exclaimed. "She goes 
this way : E, k, ek, k, o, ko, 1, e, k, lek, t, i, k, tik 
— ekkolektik !" 



QUACKS AND QUACKERY. 103 

He was at the end of his exercise before the court 
and the spectators appreciated the ludicrous exhibi- 
tion of his ignorance. The court made no effort to 
suppress the roar of laughter which followed. 

The witness was very angry. " I am entitled to 
three guesses," he said, "if I have not fetched her 
the first time." 

" Go on, " said the counsel. " I have no objection. " 

"E, c, k. ek, c, h, o, ko " The applause now 

completely stopped him. His colossal impudence 
gave way — it could not survive such ridicule. He 
rushed from the witness-box foaming at the mouth 
and cursing the court and jury. His attorney had 
nothing to say, and the jury without leaving their 
seats returned a verdict for the crippled farmer. 

I encountered an illustration of the celebrity which 
some of the so-called " patent remedies" attain in one 
of our Western Territories. It was in a stage crossing 
one of the illimitable sage-brush deserts of Nevada. 
Far away, at a right angle to our course, we dis- 
covered a horseman firing his revolver, waving a 
white piece of cloth, and approaching at the top of 
his horse's speed. Our driver decided that "them 
dog-goned Shoshones had broke out uv their reserva- 
tion," and this messenger had been sent to turn us 
back. At the road crossing we halted. As the cou- 
rier approached he shouted his message: "Jesus 
Pacheco wants a box uv er little liver pills, and his 
gal Meta wants er bottle uv Ayer's Hair Vigor for 
the fandango ter-morrer night !" The driver nodded 
assent, and the horseman turned back with an air of 
an important mission executed. 

The earliest pages of profane history are records of 
13 



194 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

the most incredible quackery. " The Mistery of the 
microcosme or little world which is man's body and 
the medicinal parts belonging unto man," written by 
Basil Valentine, Monke of the order of St. Bennet, is 
a storehouse of medical science. It was comprised 
in his will, " which he hid under a Table of marble, 
behind the High Altar of the Cathedral Church in 
the Imperial City of Erfurt, leaving it there to be 
found by him whom God's Providence should make 
worthy of it. " In this learned treatise the physicians 
of the first years of the seventeenth century learned 
how " the Stone of the Philosophers was made and 
perfectly prepared out of true Virgin's milk," and 
how it " transmutes the base metals into good 
and fixt gold." Here are described the miraculous 
properties of the shining, glowing, leaping, striking, 
trembling, falling, and superior rods — the aurum 
potabile and the fiery tartar. Here, too, was the 
manual whereby he prepared his medicines which 
never failed to cure. Perfect faith in all the state- 
ments of the monk of Erfurt is somewhat difficult. 
But it involves no such tax upon human credulity as 
the medical portion of the great Natural History of 
Pliny. 

"Humanity," said Adam Smith, "is very uni- 
form." In the first, as in the nineteenth century 
men who exercised calm judgment and common sense 
upon all other subjects, in dealing with their own 
healths and lives cheated themselves by the most 
atrocious quackery. ^Esculapius and Pythagoras 
founded the medical science for Cicero and Julius 
Caesar, who in that behalf were not as well provided 
for as the Indians of North America are by their 
medicine-men in our time. For the doctors of the 



QUACKS AND QUACKERY. 195 

Piutes and the Sioux do acquire some practical knowl- 
edge in the use of medicinal plants which is valuable. 
But the most inferior of these medicine-men are not 
credulous enough to believe that acorns pounded with 
salt and axle-grease constitute a certain cure for bad 
habits, or that the toothache is cured by biting a 
piece of wood from a tree which has been struck by 
lightning. In Pliny's time the human race must 
have been fearfully afflicted with disease. Just how 
many remedies are given in the thirty-seven books 
of his great work, I have not taken the trouble to 
count. In seven of these books, which comprise 
those derived from forest trees, wild and cultivated 
plants, living creatures, and such aquatic products 
as mineral waters, sea-mosses, salt, etc., there are 
no less than six thousand two hundred and sixty-five 
of these remedies described. Of these the most fruit- 
ful source is salt, and the bramble and creeping ivy 
respectively furnish fifty-one and thirty-nine. The 
witch-hazel was probably unknown to Pliny. If he 
comprises it under the general word hazel, it by no 
means possesses the magical qualities attributed to 
"Pond's Extract." On the contrary, it produces 
headache and increase of flesh and is really good only 
for catarrh. 

If Pliny is an authority, the surgery of his time 
was as extraordinary as its pharmacopoeia. An ex- 
peditious union of broken bones was accomplished by 
bruising the ashes of burnt field-mice with honey, and 
burnt earth-worms were extremely useful for the ex- 
traction of splintered bones. To extract arrows, 
pointed weapons, and other hard substances from the 
body, the Roman surgeon applied the body of a 
mouse split asunder, or in special cases the head of 



196 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

the same animal pounded with salt, and the same 
practitioner cured his drunkard with the eggs of an 
owlet in three days. We cannot pursue the histori- 
cal accounts of this great authority in natural sci- 
ence. He was a close observer of the scientific pro- 
gress of his time. But for Pliny, the works of Diocles 
of Carystus, of Hippocrates, Praxagoras, Herophilus, 
and Erasistratus would have been lost to science and 
the remedies of Cleophantus and Asclepiades would 
never have been preserved. 

In the records of the earliest explorations of the 
New World are found illustrations of the medical 
uses of plants by the native Indians of great interest. 
Jacques Cartier of Saint Malo, that enterprising 
French explorer, first ascended the St. Lawrence 
River in Ma}-, 1535. Arrested by the rapids above 
Montreal, he found the rich alluvial soil along the 
river carpeted with wild flowers. His men sincerely 
believed that they had reached the Flowery Kingdom. 
They exclaimed, " La Chine ! La Chine !" and gave a 
name to the locality which it bears to-day. The}' 
landed, and, ignorant of the changes of temperature 
to which the region was subject, determined to re- 
main there while expeditions were sent out to explore 
the surrounding country. Suddenly the cold of De- 
cember gathered them in its embrace. They had 
none but salted provisions, and they were quicks- 
attacked by the scurvy. Said the historian of the 
expedition : " We were stricken by a disease previ- 
ously unknown — the legs were swollen, the muscles 
turned black as charcoal and seemed spotted with 
drops of blood. The disease involved the hips, 
thighs, shoulders, arms, and neck. The gums became 
rotten, the teeth loosened so that they fell from the 



QUACKS AND QUACKERY. 197 

jaws. Of one hundred and ten men from our 
three ships, by the middle of February there were 
not ten who were strong enough to take care of the 
sick, and there were not fifty who had any hope of 
life." In this desperate condition the Frenchmen 
were visited by two Indian women who made a de- 
coction from the bark of a tree and made the sick 
men drink it. The effect was almost miraculous. 
As soon as they drank it the disease was arrested, 
and within two weeks every sick man was cured. 
The species of the tree is given only by its Indian 
name, but it was probably the black cheny or a spe- 
cies of the willow. " Tous ceulx qui en ont voullu 
vser ont reconvert sante et guerison, la grace adieu," 
is the conclusion of Cartier's record of the incident. 



CHAPTER XXII. 
Essex Junction. 

There is no term in American lexicography the 
mention of which raises the indignation of so many 
travellers to a white heat as " Essex Junction." The 
reasons for this will hereafter abundantly appear. 
As I had some connection with its monstrous birth 
and a thorough knowledge of its earlier growth, per- 
haps a sketch of its history may be, in some sense, a 
duty. 

Away back in the early forties two lines of railroad 
from Boston were constructed pari passu toward 
Burlington, a common terminus. We may call them 
the Rutland and the Central. No one then supposed 
that they would extend farther west, for Lake Cham- 
plain was thought to interpose an impassable barrier. 
Later, and before either road was constructed to its 
terminus, the Vermont and Canada was chartered 
from Burlington north to Canada line, and this road 
was leased to and became permanently identified with 
the Central. Still later an application was made to 
the legislature in the name of the Vermont and Can- 
ada to bridge Lake Champlain at Rouse's Point so as 
to secure an unbroken line toward the West. 

Then commenced a contest famous in the legislative 
annals of Vermont. The Rutland, supported hy the 
towns south and west of its line, supposed it could 
stay the progress of the railroad westward. Burling- 

198 



ESSEX JUNCTION. 199 

ton, ambitious to become a railroad terminus on the 
lake, took an active part in the contest. The bridge 
was opposed on grounds which now seem absurdly 
untenable. It was claimed and proved by experts 
that the bridge would obstruct navigation, that it 
would raise the water and overflow the low lands 
along the lake shores, and that great public and pri- 
vate damage would inevitably follow its construction. 

But the Central won and the bridge was authorized. 
Then the Rutland wanted to participate in its ad- 
vantages, and after another fierce contest in the leg- 
islature it procured an amendment of its charter 
which authorized it to build an extension from Bur- 
lington north to Rouse's Point. 

There was a law}~er who, by indorsing for a friend, 
had at that time become interested in a paper-mill at 
Hubbell's Falls, near the present Essex Junction. 
We will call his name Jacob. He lived at Stanton's 
Tavern, a hostelry on the river road convenient to 
the Falls. He was a diminutive creature about four 
and a half feet high, with an enormous head, which 
contained cunning and mischief enough to stock the 
Third House or fit out the students of a university. 
He was employed by the Central as counsel to pre- 
vent the construction of the Rutland railroad north of 
Burlington, and he entered upon his work con amove. 
He discovered and forthwith purchased the services 
of one Stevens, who lived in Essex, and who was an 
original subscriber for five shares of the capital stock 
of the Rutland Railroad Company, not then worth 
the same number of coppers. The Rutland was about 
to make a new issue of bonds secured by a mortgage 
of its entire line, with the proceeds of which it in- 
tended to build from Burlington to Rouse's Point. 



200 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

As unexpected as thunder from a clear sky, Jacob 
came down upon it with an action in favor of 
Stevens for an injunction against the building of the 
extension, on the ground that the extension was an 
infraction of his (Stevens') vested rights as a stock- 
holder in a railroad the terminus of which was at 
Burlington. 

Jacob's motion for a preliminary injunction came 
on to be heard before Judge Milo L. Bennett at Bur- 
lington — a judge whom no inducement could swerve 
one hair's breadth from his judicial duty. No lawsuit 
had ever arisen in Vermont which caused greater ex- 
citement. The leading lawyers from the southern 
and western portions of the State were present at 
the hearing. They protested against the outrage 
of permitting a traitor to the Rutland company, who 
had sold himself to the enemy and whose paltry five 
shares of stock were worthless, to obstruct a great pub- 
lic enterprise in which three-fourths of the State were 
interested. Capitalists from Boston whose money 
had built the Rutland railroad offered an enormous 
price for the Stevens shares. Everything that legal 
ability and ingenuity could devise was done to resist 
the granting of that motion. But Jacob was inflexi- 
ble. He appeared alone, without associate counsel. 
He wasn't "selling shares then," he said. "Some 
other day, perhaps; but just then he was after an 
injunction." 

And he got his injunction. In spite of all the op- 
position, his motion was granted. In the opinion of 
an inflexible judge he was entitled to it, and it was 
not withheld. I ma}^ as well say here that that in- 
junction was never dissolved, and the railroad was 
never built north of Burlington. The excitement was 



ESSEX JUNCTION. 201 

so unreasoning that it took the form of personal hos- 
tility to Judge Bennett, because he did not find some 
way of defeating or denying the motion. At the 
next session of the legislature his re-election was 
defeated. It was the first time in Vermont that a 
judge was opposed because he had made or not made 
a decision which the public wanted. Before the } r ear 
had passed the Vermonters were thoroughly ashamed 
of their conduct. Judge Bennett was restored to the 
Supreme Bench by the unanimous vote of the legis- 
lature, and remained there by annual re-election un- 
til he died. 

And this mischief-making attorney made another 
discovery of what I always regarded as an intended 
fraud. It was that while the charter of the Vermont 
and Canada road connected with the Rutland in the 
village of Burlington, it had the option to connect 
with the Central at some point in the county of Chit- 
tenden. Very soon the report was current that on 
account of the steep grades of the line into Burling- 
ton from the north and east, the engineers were pros- 
pecting for a line to connect the Vermont and Canada 
with the Central somewhere in Essex. Even then it 
was not believed that any needless injury to Burling- 
ton was contemplated. Burlington was the largest 
town or city in the State or the Champlain valley, 
located on a sheltered harbor at the widest part of 
the lake, and midway between its two ends. She 
had water communication south with New York, 
north with Montreal and Quebec, and west with the 
St. Lawrence, the Ottawa, and the great lakes. She 
was almost the largest lumber market in the Union. 
Her manufactures were flourishing, her private resi- 
dences beautiful, and her people hospitable. It seemed 



202 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

as if nature and art had combined to equip her with 
every quality for the natural lake terminus of three 
railroads, and to make her an attraction to travellers 
upon whose memories she should leave the imprint 
of a pleasant dream. She was the Queen City of 
Lake Champlain. 

But an accident which placed the control of the 
Central where it could be made to minister to a very 
small local prejudice exposed Burlington to grave and 
lasting misfortunes. Six miles from anywhere, there 
was a barren sand plain that would not subsist one 
jack-rabbit to the square acre. The region round 
about it had not one attraction, and its general fea- 
tures could only serve to prejudice the passing travel- 
ler, and to deceive him as to the fertility of the soil 
of Vermont, the beauty of her valley, and the gran- 
deur of her mountains. On this dreary spot a little 
brief authority decreed should be planted a public 
nuisance — an irritating obstruction to the traveller, 
which he would never, except upon compulsion, en- 
counter a second time. 

Said the piping voice of that attorney : " Build me 
here, out of the culled hemlock or the cross-grained 
spruce, a shanty, through which the rains of sum- 
mer may drizzle and the storms of winter whirl 
the blinding snows. Along its walls plant benches 
hard and uncomfortable enough to give the rheuma- 
tism to a foundered tramp, should he be so unfortunate 
as to be obliged to sit upon them. In one corner 
build a stall, and place along its shelves the stale 
doughnut, the deadly pie, and the vinegar-rotted cu- 
cumber. Let a cold decoction of burnt corn be pre- 
pared and call it coffee. Arrange all trains so as to 
condemn many travellers to four hours of starvation 



ESSEX JUNCTION. 203 

and imprisonment there, in the din of ringing bells 
and screaming whistles, until they shall be thoroughly 
prepared for suicide, and let it be called Essex Junc- 
tion!" 

And it was so. As an abomination of desolation 
it was an early and a conspicuous success. In 1852 
this dreadful place was a possession unto the residue 
of the heathen, taken upon the lips of talkers, and 
an infamy of the people. Men thought it then a su- 
perlative type of misery. But Essex Junction pos- 
sessed a reserve force of discomfort unsuspected by 
its inventors. It has become worse with the rolling 
years. The only thing which has prospered in that 
vicinity during these almost forty years is the grave- 
yard. 

A place so noted, which has ploughed such deep 
furrows of misery upon so many memories, which, 
disregarding age, sex, or condition, has imperilled so 
many human lives, has naturally attracted the at- 
tention of man}' American poets and prose- writers. 
Some have abandoned it after a cursory examination, 
satisfied that it was beyond their powers and a subject 
to which they could not do justice. Others have per- 
severed until they became convinced that any ade- 
quate description of its detestable attributes involved 
the use of profane and wicked expressions punisha- 
ble under the penal code and prohibited in polite so- 
ciety. Only one native poet has had enough of the 
divine afflatus to enshrine Essex Junction in im- 
mortal song. All who are familiar with the English 
poetry of the last half of the nineteenth century will 
at once understand that I refer to that celebrated 
classic which (I quote from memory) runs after this 
wise : 



204 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

" With saddened face and battered hat, 
And eye that told of blank despair, 
On wooden bench a traveller sat, 

Cursing the fate that brought him there. " 

I hoped to be able to give to my readers the whole of 
this admirable poem, for I know well that no account 
of Essex Junction can be complete without it. But 
my way has been beset with many difficulties. All 
known copies of the poem have been bought up and 
suppressed by those whose hard fate anchors them to 
Essex Junction. Applications to the author for a 
copy have been met with invective, reproach, con- 
tumely, obloquy, and objurgation. Attempts to 
reproduce it from memory against his will have 
developed the fact that it is so thoroughly protected 
by trade-marks, design-patents, and copyrights that 
the inventor could at once enjoin its sale should its 
publication be attempted in invitum. After thor- 
ough investigation, I am convinced that but one con- 
solation remains to the public. The line of this 
writer is so obviously poetry, not sacred but profane, 
that he may be expected hereafter to devote himself 
exclusively to its composition. In the first edition of 
his collected works we may therefore confidently ex- 
pect to read with a sympathetic thrill the only great 
ballad of Essex Junction. I feel that I have in a 
perfunctory manner done my duty to the place and 
its proprietors, and that I may say of it as Uncle 
Toby said of the fly when he carefully put it outside 
the window : " Go, poor devil ! In all this wide 
world there is room enough for both thee and me !" 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

The Humor and Mischief op the Junior Bar — 

Our Annual Bar Festival. 

" Send out for all the lawyers, 

Collect the jovial crowd, 
To gather 'round the tables 

With mirth and uproar loud. 
Call those whom we so long have known — 

Squire Seymour, Linsley, Starr, 
And also all the devil's own — who? 

Of course the junior bar !" 

The term applied in the foregoing verse did not 
inaccurately describe a class of lawyers who in those 
early days were known as the junior bar. We did 
not have many clients nor much income. But we 
had abundance of leisure and were given to mischief 
as the sparks fly upward. There was one occasion 
on which the safety-valve was thrown wide open and 
the dangerous pressure of humor was relieved. It 
was the annual supper of the bar at the winter term 
of the Supreme Court, held by all the judges at Mid- 
dlebury, in the county of Addison. There we laid 
Coke and Blackstone on the shelf and sung with great 
fervor — 

" O dear brothers, may the time be distant, far, 
When the first one shall be missing from the gathering of 
the bar. " 

That was a company of men with hearts and con- 
sciences which this festival annually brought to- 

205 



206 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

gether. Our oldest brother of threescore and ten 
years we always called " Squire Seymour." A mem- 
ber of the celebrated Seymour family of Connecticut 
and New York, his kindly heart and amiable char- 
acter secured not only our respect but our affection. 
There was an expression in his clear blue eyes which 
without exaggeration we called lovely. Our Starr was 
a deacon who could take a joke and make one, if neces- 
sary ; others were Linsley, with a saturnine expression 
which was only skin-deep, and his stock song of " The 
Hunters of Kentucky ;" John Prout, who seldom spoke 
above a whisper, and was consequently accused of 
making all the noise; Tucker, with his thirty-two de- 
grees of Masonry and his eloquence in behalf of in- 
jured females ; Needham, our Falstaff , with all the wit 
and weight but none of the grossness of his Shake- 
spearian prototype; Geo. Chipman, the born gentle- 
man from the mountain wilds of Ripton ; Barber, the 
poet of love and free-soil ! Our leaders in song were 
the brothers S., whose annual programmes alwa} T s 
comprised " The McGregors' Gathering " and imita- 
tion opera. One of our most active members already 
gave promise of the eminence in diplomacy which he 
afterward attained, by his skill in the use of language 
to conceal ideas. Woodbridge and Grandey wore the 
honors of the largest city in Vermont, which was also 
celebrated as the smallest in the world. These, with 
occasional visitors from adjoining counties and 
worthy representatives of the names of Pierpont, 
Briggs, Beckwith, and Wright, alwa} T s furnished 
abundant material for a feast of reason and a flow of 
soul. 

We were officers of the court, bound to obedience 
to statutory law. Our State had adopted the " Maine 



HUMOR OF THE JUNIOR BAR. 207 

liquor law," and under the maxim in equity which 
presumed that to be done which ought to be done, 
the use of all beverages stronger than cider and spruce 
beer no longer prevailed. The only fluids upon our 
menu (we called it bill of fare) were Ripton mineral 
water, cider fermented and unfermented, and metheg- 
lin. Our judges, qualified as experts by long experi- 
ence, were of opinion that the Ripton water had a de- 
lightful " blue-grass " aroma, that the cider in flavor 
and consequences was undistinguishable from a prod- 
uct of French vineyards imported in baskets, and 
that the metheglin closely resembled a complicated 
mixture known to our remote ancestors by the name 
of "rum-punch." These opinions were undoubtedly 
imaginative, though it must be admitted that the 
liberal absorption of these fluids softened the stern- 
ness of the judicial countenance and produced a 
change in its visual organs which once led our most 
venerable judge, pointing to our deacon, to break out 
with the nursery ballad, " Twinkle, twinkle, little 
Starr." The conclusive evidence that there was no 
deception in our bill of fare was the fact that no 
lawyer or judge was ever known to be absent at the 
opening of court at ten o'clock the next morning. 

The wit of these festivals was much too personal 
for publication. It was always good-natured, never 
malicious. When it was raised to concert pitch, it 
was our delight to send out committees to bring in 
all the judges. Our invitations were never declined, 
for they knew that while our exercises promoted good 
feeling among the lawyers, they were never permitted 
to diminish our respect for the bench. But we did 
sometimes call upon them to explain their opinions 
in cases recently reported. One of them, naturally 



208 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

too realistic to appreciate a joke, had in a recent 
opinion defined a " heifer " as a " calrless bovine two 
years old." This opinion we considered misleading. 
A committee secured the presence of the judge and 
formally demanded that he should explain whether 
or not a male bovine two years old, being calfless, 
was a heifer. He certainly was as the judge defined 
the word. We insisted that the opinion was an 
innovation calculated to disturb the certainty of the 
law. His explanations were much confused and we 
made the occasion very lively for him. He rather 
turned the laugh upon us, however, by the admission 
that his use of the word was inaccurate and " must 
have been induced by the increasing number and con- 
stant presence before him of sucking members of the 
bar." He offered to compromise by the order of a 
basket of something, and his explanation and com- 
promise were accepted as satisfactory. 

I recall one of our sentiments which worried an- 
other of our judges. The action of " book account " 
had been in use from the adoption of our constitu- 
tion. It was originally intended for a case of mutual 
accounts or of an account with many items difficult 
of proof except by the oath of a party. In an action 
of this kind the parties had been permitted to testify 
long before the general statute which made all par- 
ties to an action witnesses. This action had been 
favored by the court and greatly extended. In a re- 
cent case it had been maintained in what looked much 
like a case of trespass, for carrying away a flight of 
cellar stairs, the judge observing that one stair could 
not, but a flight might be recovered for in this form 
of action. The sentiment to which he was called to 
respond was: 



HUMOR OF THE JUNIOR BAR. 209 

" The action of book account. Like necessity it 
knows no law — like the area of freedom it is constantly 
extending its limits — like the peace of God it passeth 
all understanding." 

There are lying before me the manuscript notes of 
several of these festivals. In them I recognize the 
handwriting of nearly every one of those I have named. 
I might transcribe, for the amusement of the casual 
reader, some, of their sharp, bright words, but, alas ! 
I have not the heart. For of all those dear brothers, 
judges as well as lawyers, I can count the survivors 
upon less than the ringers of a single hand. The 
others have all preceded us to that Higher Bar which 
we are very near. Only four will read these lines. 
There is no need that I should express to either of 
them the memories which fill my heart as I write. 
For we loved one another with a love which will 
never grow cold in the bosoms of the survivors on 
this side of the grave. I would like to hear the few 
who remain, with voices not so clear as they were 
forty years ago, once more uniting in the stanza : 

" Now swell the parting chorus as the lamps grow pale and 

dim, 
And fill each man his goblet till it circles round the brim ; 
Let our hearts glow with the feeliug that like lambent flame 

burns bright, 
As we drink the toast of the evening, 'To the absent ones 

to-night. '" 

Echoes of the feast sometimes mingled with the 
proceedings in court on subsequent days. Our briefs 
were not printed — we made seven copies, one for each 
judge. One of our number, who seldom smiled, an 
able lawyer, afterward an honor to the bench, prided 
himself upon the neatness of his papers, which were 
14 



210 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

always folded to an uniform width. He was to open 
the argument in the first case the morning after one 
of these suppers. He walked up to the bench in front 
of the Chief Justice, brought his pack of briefs down 
upon the bench, and as if his mind was upon a pack 
of another kind said, " Will your Honor please 

CUT?" 

"Mr. P.," said the judge with great dignity, "you 
must use language which the court understands!" 

" Excuse me," said the sober P. , "I did not suppose 
that your Honor had forgotten over-night !" 

Another incident had its origin at one of these 
suppers in a promise to pay off one of the judges for a 
joke perpetrated at my own expense. He was a per- 
fectly pure and upright judge, but disqualified by 
nature for the trial of criminals. He was unable to 
overcome his natural presumption that every man 
brought before him for trial must be guilty until he 
had affirmatively proved his innocence. "Mr. At- 
torney, can't we get hold of a criminal ?" I heard 
him ask one morning when there was no civil case 
ready for trial. This inquiry indicated his temper 
of mind. Obviously a criminal against whom there 
was any evidence did not have much chance of es- 
cape when Judge B. in his charge had the last argu- 
ment to the jury. 

At the jury term following the bar supper a mel- 
ancholy, disconsolate, worthless scamp was indicted 
for the crime of selling intoxicating liquor without 
having a license therefor. He said he had no coun- 
sel and no money, and he might have added that he 
never expected to have any. With a wicked expres- 
sion in his eye, Judge B. assigned me as counsel for 
his defence. I refused peremptorily, but the judge 



HUMOR OF THE JUNIOR BAR. 211 

said I was an officer of the court and could not dis- 
obey its order without incurring the penalties of a 
contempt. I then pleaded engagements and endeav- 
ored to beg off. But the judge was inflexible. I 
saw that he was determined to make me endure the 
infliction, and then insisted that two lawyers of my 
own age should be assigned to assist me, who assured 
me that they were willing to share the responsibility 
with me. The judge hesitated, for he evidently sus- 
pected mischief. But he finally made the assignment, 
at the same time remarking with emphasis, " None 
of j T our deviltry, gentlemen !" 

I promptly said that " I did not quite comprehend 
the scope of his Honor's observation. Were we to 
defend the fellow in earnest, to get him acquitted if 
Ave could, or were we only to go through the motions 
in a formal and perfunctory manner? I was indiffer- 
ent which course should be taken, but I would like 
to understand in advance which his Honor preferred." 

" Oh, no !" said he. " No formality. You are to 
get the fellow off if you can. You are to do }'our 
best. I do not think you will find it an easy matter," 
he said very significantly. 

The jury was impanelled and the trial proceeded. 
I should think the prosecuting attorney proved about 
two hundred offences, and might easily have proved 
a few hundred more by the same witnesses. He then 
rested his case. I arose with a perfectl}- serious face 
and read out a long list of witnesses, comprising sev- 
eral physicians and some of the.most dignified mem- 
bers of the bar. 

" What do you intend to prove by these witnesses?" 
demanded the judge. 

I replied, with solemnity of speech and expression, 



212 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

that my witnesses were principally experts. " I am 
instructed, sir," I said, " by my unfortunate and perse- 
cuted client that he is a law-abiding citizen, innocent 
of any intent to violate the law ; that the fluid vended 
by him was not intoxicating ; that it was purchased 
from a dealer in Whitehall, who watered it so as to 
remove its intoxicating properties before it was per- 
mitted to enter our State. In order to be perfectly 
safe, my unfortunate client watered it again. He 
instructs me that no one was ever intoxicated by it. 
He says that in some cases where his patrons had 
purchased at the town agency a glass of beer in the 
early morning, they will testify that they came to 
his place and drank of this fluid all the day long — that 
the more they drank the soberer they grew, and when 
at bedtime they severally retired to their virtuous 
couches, they were not only perfectly sober, but in- 
spired by a firm determination in future to live 
upright and temperate lives. I intend also to have 
liberal samples of the fluid brought into court, and its 
non-intoxicating effects demonstrated in the person 
of the sheriff or other officer of the court. " 

" You will do nothing of the kind !" exclaimed the 
judge. " The impudence of your offer alone prevents 
my punishing you for making it. Positively it is 
the most impudent proposition I ever heard made in 
court. Your unfortunate client sold this stuff for 
whiskey, and whiskey it will be taken to be for the 
purposes of this trial. I rule against your offer. If 
you have any other witnesses call them !" 

"Very well," I said. "If the court rejects my 
evidence I must submit. I have no other wit- 
nesses." 

The State's attorney said that he did not wish to 



HUMOR OF THE JUNIOR BAR. 213 

argue the case to the jury — that there was nothing 
to argue. The court agreed with him and was 
about to direct a verdict of guilt}-, when I interposed 
and insisted upon my right to address the jury. 

"What questions do you wish to argue?" asked 
Judge B. 

I replied that this was a prosecution against the 
respondent for a high crime. It was a case in which 
the jurors were judges of the law as well as of the 
fact. That I had recently made a thorough exami- 
nation of the authorities, and I was prepared to show 
by a very large number of cases, beginning with the 
" Year Books " and ending with a very recent case 
in Texas, that it was the duty of the court to instruct 
the jury that in this case the jury had the right to 
determine the law. 

"The question is one of great interest," I said, 
"and I hope by an exhaustive discussion of the cases 
to satisfy the court that my view of the law is ac- 
curate and sound." 

" No, sir ! No, sir !" exclaimed his Honor. " Do 
you ask me to sit here and hear you tell the jury that 
they know what the law is better than the court? 
Your proposition is an insult. I think you know 
better. I have a great mind to commit you *for con- 
tempt in making the offer." 

" Oh, no !" I said. " Do not do that. In the first 
place, instead of entertaining a contempt for this court 
your Honor knows how sincerely I honor and respect 
the court. In the next, when I go to jail it must be 
for a client who can pay. I submit to your Honor's 
ruling and take my seat. With your Honor's per- 
mission I should be pleased to withdraw from the 
case." 



214 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

"Where is the prisoner? Where is your unfortu- 
nate client?" suddenly demanded the judge. 

One of my associates now rose and said that he 
had been waiting a long time for an opportunit} 1- to 
address the court, bat he thought it would be im- 
proper to break in upon the instructive and interest- 
ing colloquy between the court and one of the counsel ; 
that he understood that in the English courts, 
whence we derived our common law, when the plain- 
tiff's case broke down and he was permitted to with- 
draw a juror, it was the correct practice for his lead- 
ing counsel to rise and say to the court : 

"M' Lud, I see only eleven jurors in the box!" 

"Mr. B., if you know where the prisoner is, you 
had better say so and omit all this rigmarole." 

" Oh ! very well. If your Honor does not wish to 
hear me, I will resume my seat. I was about to 
make a communication to the court, but perhaps the 
court can improve my language," said B. with per- 
fect imperturbability. 

" Oh ! go on ! go on in your own way. Only get 
to some point in the course of the day," said the 
judge, now becoming irascible. 

" Then, sir, I will resume. Using a similar formula 
I was about to say, or rather if I had not been inter- 
rupted I should have said, 'Your Honor, I see no 
prisoner in the box !' " 

"Well, sir! Well, sir! and what then?" 

" Then it occurred to me that while my attention 
was absorbed by the discussion between the counsel 
and 3 r our Honor upon the much-debated question 
whether in this State the jurors in a criminal case 
were judges of the law, the respondent pressed me 
with the inquiry whether 'the judge wasn't agin' 



HUMOR OF THE JUNIOR BAR. 215 

him.' I insisted that my position as his counsel, 
under the order of the court, did not require me to 
answer such an inquiry. He was persistent, however, 
and to get rid of him I finally said that I was on 
the whole inclined to the opinion that the judge ivas 
agin'' him! Then he remarked that he 'guessed he 
would go out and see a man, ' and he went — that is, 
I think he went, for I have not seen him since." 

" Why did you not instantly inform the court of 
his escape?" sternly demanded the judge. 

"Because I did not know that he had escaped. 
The only information I had was that, animo rever- 
tendi, he had 'gone out to see a man.' Observing 
that he did not return, I caused inquiry to be made, 
and learned that when last seen he was following a 
wagon in the direction of the boundary line of an ad- 
joining county." 

" Sheriff, go instantly in pursuit of the prisoner !" 
said the judge. Then addressing the counsel, "I 
think the court will give you some instructions in 
the line of your duty," he said very significant!}'. 

"Your Honor is quite right," rejoined the lawyer, 
coolly ignoring the threatening nature of the intima- 
tion. " Your Honor will readily appreciate my di- 
lemma. My first impulse was to break in upon your 
Honor's very interesting observations upon the rights 
of jurors and the court, and shout: 'The prisoner 
has skipped !' But I was restrained by three power- 
ful considerations. If the prisoner was caught and 
convicted, he would be imprisoned, clothed, and fed 
at the expense of the county, thereby imposing an ex- 
pensive burden on the tax-payers, of whom I am one, 
and if left alone he would carry the burden into some 
other county ; secondly, was I certain enough of my 



216 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

premises to conclude that he did not intend to return? 
and, thirdly, your Honor had told us in so many 
words to get him off if we could ! On the other 
hand, was I under any obligation to give information 
to the prejudice of my unfortunate client? Before I 
could clearly see my way through the labyrinth of 
these conflicting duties the fellow had got such a 
start that the sheriff could probably not overtake 
him. Being in doubt I thought the safer course was 
to do nothing, and I did it." 

The judge supposed we intended to ridicule him, 
when nothing was farther from our purpose. He be- 
came very angry, said that he would give us a lesson 
profitable to us in future ; that the sheriff would take 
us into custody, and after the mid-day intermission 
he would fix upon the term of our imprisonment for 
contempt. 

I observed that the court " must indulge me in an 
objection. We severalty and seriously disclaimed 
any intentional disrespect to the court. No contempt 
whatever had been committed in the presence of the 
court. If there had been a technical contempt it 
arose out of our omission to communicate certain 
facts touching the prisoner's movements outside the 
court. For such a contempt we could only be ad- 
judged guilty upon evidence taken after interroga- 
tories had been filed which we had had an opportu- 
nity to answer; that nothing would give us greater 
pleasure than to answer such interrogatories." 

I did not finish my remarks. The bar began to 
appreciate the absurdity of the performance and to 
see that my objection was well founded. Father 
Needham, the sight of whose broad, sunny face was 
a cure for despondency, as amicus curiae took our 



HUMOR OF THE JUNIOR BAR. 217 

side. He said that this court was in no doubt about 
the respect entertained for it by every member of 
the bar ; and if the boys had gone too far, he knew 
they would apologize. The side judges, two good- 
hearted, hard-headed farmers, argued with their 
chief in an undertone ; a more genial expression be- 
gan to steal over the face of his Honor, and we 
were saved. After a brief consultation the presiding 
judge said the court had decided that we were not 
guilty of contempt, but advised us that it would be 
very unsafe to repeat the experiment. " The court it- 
self is in fault for giving you such an opportunity to 
conspire. Do you never meet without devising some 
mischief?" 

"Very seldom, your Honor," said B. in an under- 
tone. 

" Seriously, then, gentlemen, it is a grave offence 
to countenance the escape of a prisoner. It is a 
graver one to do anything to lower the dignity of the 
court. A time will come when you would no more 
do it than you would commit a felony — when you 
will uphold the dignity of the tribunal which even 
the judges may fail to maintain." 

To-day I realize the truth of these observations. 
I have told the story, for it gives me an opportunity 
to say that an upright and a pure judiciary, such as 
long existed and I hope still exists, of which the 
highest court in the republic is and always has been 
a model, is the hope of our republic. When it ceases 
to exist the republic will perish. No lawyer young 
or old should trifle with its dignity or lower it in the 
respect of the public. In the case cited our conduct 
was inexcusable and reprehensible. 

I have wandered a long way from the bar supper. 



218 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

I return to it to say that it would be better for every- 
body — the court, the bar, and the public — if such fes- 
tivals were more common. Nowhere have I met a 
local bar where there was less of jealousy and envy, 
more of hearty good-will and desire to assist each 
other, than among those who annualty sat at our 
table in Addison County. Here is one of their char- 
acteristic illustrations. One of our number, a man 
of a great, generous heart, a gentleman by birth, 
instinct, and education, could not succeed in the pro- 
fession and became poor. We seldom met him with- 
out putting into his empty pockets something from 
our own, which were but scantily furnished. He 
had an old case on the calendar which was to be tried 
or dismissed. We saw that he was in great distress 
and ascertained the cause. His client had betrayed 
him to his adversary. If he did not recover, or if 
the case was dismissed, he would lose his own costs 
and charges and have to pay the costs of the defend- 
ant for which he was bound. We examined the case 
and decided that he was entitled to recover. I think 
about ten of us volunteered to assist him on the trial. 
Two were to be the active counsel ; the others were 
to look wise, smile upon us, and frown upon the de- 
fendant. We recovered, and our friend got his 
money. We would not permit him to share it with 
us or give it away, and it gave him a couple of happy 
years. I recall with a thrill of delight his blue, 
moistened eye, his thin lips tremulous with emotion, 
when with clasped hands, seated around our table, 
all sang — or if they could not sing declared — that 

" He is a jolly good fellow — good fellow — good fellow ! 
Which nobody can deny. " 



HUMOR OF THE JUNIOR BAR. 219 

But now the hour of separation comes. Again 
H. N. shakes his ^50 pounds avoirdupois and the very 
foundations of the hall with the last story from the 
mountain hamlet where he reigns. If there is a lull 
the three B.s or S. will fill it with a new verse to the 
old song, while the venerable judges in unison de- 
clare : 

"We won't go home till morning, till morning, till morning." 

" And Linsley still contributes 
From his stock a single leaf, 
And reads with deep emotion 

From old Judge Keyes's brief. 
And if the cars don't leave meantime, 

We shall be very lucky ; 
For he'll stay and sing his favorite song — which? 
The Hunters of Kentucky — O ! Kentucky ! 
The Hunters of Kentucky. " 

And now the gray dawn is creeping over the val- 
ley ; we know that the top of Ripton mountain is al- 
ready aflame and that the court-house bell waits for 
no man. The judges in their easy-chairs may close 
their eyes, and while apparently buried in deep re- 
flection may go to sleep. But we must clear the dust 
from our eyes and the cobwebs from our throats and 
be prepared to argue our cases when they are reached 
in their order. 

Our chairman rises — the gavel falls for the last 
time. It is the signal for every guest to stand upon 
his feet. The rich voice of one of the brothers S. 
leads and every one joins in the well-known words 
which always unite our hands in a strong and cordial 
grasp : 



220 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

"Now here's a hand, my trusty fiere, 

And gie's a hand o' thine ; 
An' we'll tak' a right guid willie-waught 

For auld lang syne ! 
And surely ye '11 be your pint-stoup, 

And surely I'll be mine, 
And we'll tr.k' a cup o' kindness yet 

For auld lang syne. 

" For auld lang syne, my dear, 
For auld lang syne, 
We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet 
For auld lang syne. " 

The last note of the good old song dies away. We 
have had our " uproar long and loud," but it is ended 
now. Our hearts are very full of friendship and good- 
will one to another. We say good-by and go away 
to our several duties, warmer friends, better citizens, 
and better lawyers. Honored and cherished be the 
memories of the festival for the pleasure it gave me 
at the time and for the satisfaction which this slight 
notice of it has given to me after these many years. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 
Owls, Falcons, and Eagles. 

When Minerva selected the owl as the chief at- 
traction of her aviary, she must have judged him by 
his face rather than by his character. For no biped 
or quadruped was ever created so profoundly wise as 
he looks to be, and none ever established a character 
more questionable. From the little wretch whose 
fearful screech stirs the blood of the hunter in the 
wilderness to the big fellow in snowy plumage with 
the surname of Nyctea, all are thieves, and some are 
bold robbers with the silent movements of the burglar. 
There is a female of the Virginianus family that 
looks down upon my library table from the top of a 
book-case, whose first acquaintance I have permanent 
cause to remember. She is nearly one-third larger 
than her spouse, she was mistress of the family, and 
was very sure to be quartering the country on some 
marauding excursion while her mate in the dark 
forest was frightening children with his dreadfully 
mournful " Hoo-hoo-hoo ! Ho-hoo !" which gives him 
the Indian name of "ooloo," or the devil, and the 
common one of the "'hooting or great horned owl." 
The only good I ever heard of him is that his brain 
cures fits in children, especially those into which they 
are frightened hy his funereal wail. 

I made the acquaintance of the Madame Strix of 

my library after this wise. I had killed a full-grown 

221 



222 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

mallard which fell upon the river bank, and had re- 
loaded my ^im, when a large object passed over me 
as noiseless o a shadow. It swooped down toward 
the ground, and when it rose in an ascending curve I 
saw that it was this female robber, and that she was 
carrying off my mallard before my very face. I sent 
a charge of number six shot after her, and some of 
the pellets must have collided with her shoulder-blade 
or ulna, for she sailed gracefully to the ground, re- 
leasing the duck from her talons as she fell. 

I first secured the duck — a large one weighing, I 
suppose, over three pounds, and measuring two feet 
in length, apparently larger and heavier than its 
rapacious captor. As I noticed the ease with which 
Madame Strix carried this great bird in her flight, I 
queried for a moment whether there might not be 
some color of truth in the annually recurring story 
of the carrying away of unregenerate babes by the 
white-headed eagle. With this thought in my mind 
I approached the owl, which, instantly throwing her- 
self upon her back, presented what the prize-fighter 
would have called her "fives" with such dexterity 
that she appeared on her under side to be made of 
claws. I carelessly touched her with the tip of my 
right foot, when, presto ! in an instant there was a 
sensation as though the calf of my leg had been seized 
with hot pinchers. Madame had struck her sharp 
talons through the hard leather of my hunting-boot 
deep into my leg with a grasp ot intense energy, 
producing a very painful sensation. Had it been 
practicable I would have compromised by a sur- 
render of the duck, for although I might crush out 
the life of the bird I knew that fierce grip would be 
maintained, though it might tear out the very mus- 



OWLS, FALCONS, AND EAGLES. 223 

cles of my limb, which could have been done without 
much increase of the pain. Fortunateb r there was 
in my game-bag a bottle of chloroform, . ich I used 
to destroy the life of the specimens I wished to pre- 
serve without injury to their plumage. To saturate 
a handkerchief with the anaesthetic and throw it over 
the head of my temporary captor was the work of 
a moment. Relaxation of the fierce grasp and ces- 
sation of the pain speedily followed, and Madame 
Strix fell into the sleep that knows no waking. I 
never allowed her to return to this life. I believe 
she carries fiercer weapons, operated by a more power- 
ful muscle than any rapacious bird of my acquaint- 
ance. 

The Osprey, or Fish-Hawk. 

No rapacious bird possesses a character so unex- 
ceptionable as the fish-hawk. The largest of our 
falcons except the eagle, provided with powerful 
pinions and fierce talons and with an appetite which 
is seldom satiated, he never invades the poultry-yard 
or any of the possessions of the farmer. He subsists 
wholly upon fish, preferably upon species which the 
fisherman would willingly have exterminated. No 
sportsman ever injures the fish-hawk, and to destroy 
one of their nests is supposed to be a certain way of 
incurring bad luck and heavy misfortune. 

The fish-hawk is the only bird which constructs its 
nest in the most prominent and conspicuous localities, 
where it cannot fail to attract attention. A dead 
tree of large diameter, with a few branches capable 
of sustaining great weight, standing on a point 
formed by an Adirondack river, visible for miles in 
every direction, is the favorite nesting-place of this 



224 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

splendid bird. Here both male and female labor in 
the construction of the nest. It is made of dried 
branches, some of them as thick as the wrist, with 
grasses or any soft material in the centre. It is oc- 
cupied by the same pair year after year, and as they 
annually make additions to it, it sometimes reaches 
the dimensions of a small haystack. The young 
never leave it until they are full grown and each 
one is able to " go a-fishing" on his own account. 

There was for many years, and I hope still is, one 
of these nests on the outlet of the beautiful Raquette 
Lake. As we passed it late one September afternoon, 
two young and nearly full-grown birds showed them- 
selves, sitting upon its edge. We had reached the 
lake and were slowly moving along its bold southern 
shore, when I noticed the female fish-hawk sailing 
high above our heads on the lookout for the evening 
meal of her family. Through a strong field-glass, by 
lying on my back in the stern of the boat, I had 
an excellent opportunity to observe her movements. 
Using the trees on the shore for comparison, I esti- 
mated her elevation to be not less than two hundred 
feet above the water. She suddenly dropped like an 
arrow, her talons downward, and struck so near the 
boat that the water dashed over us. She had some 
difficulty in rising, and only did so after a consider- 
able struggle. When she succeeded, she carried with 
her a four-pound pickerel which she held in both her 
claws, one stuck into its shoulders, the other just 
above its anal orifice. She was slowly moving up- 
ward uttering her screams of triumph, when a rev- 
erend gentleman, my accidental companion in the bow 
of the boat, fired both barrels of his gun in her direc- 
tion,, Fortunately he was not marksman enough to 



OWLS, FALCONS, AND EAGLES. 225 

hit a barn-door, and the hawk was untouched. The 
brave bird would not drop her prey. She continued 
to ascend, screaming her contempt at the pot-hunter, 
until she had attained her former elevation, when she 
sailed away in the direction of her nest. I watched 
her until she reached it and deposited the pickerel 
in the midst of her hungry family. 

The reader who is unacquainted with the word- 
picture by Wilson, the ornithologist, of the robbery 
of the fish-hawk by the white-headed eagle has yet 
to enjoy a fine example of descriptive writing. These 
robberies are not infrequent, and I witnessed one of 
them which was not a successful experiment. It 
occurred on the shore of Long Lake. 

At the time of which I am writing, on a point 
which extended into the lake from its western shore 
under Buck Mountain, there was a grove of white 
pine trees. In the largest of these was the nest of a 
pair of eagles. They had nested there for many 
years. Sabattis, then a man of fifty, could not re- 
member a year when it was not so occupied. By 
annual additions it had grown to an enormous size 
and was visible for miles. These eagles were mas- 
ters of the lake, and it was not often visited by the 
ospreys, even upon a fishing excursion. 

One morning, from my camp at the outlet, I noticed 
a pair of ospreys with two young but full-grown 
birds in the trees on the eastern shore. The old 
birds were training the young ones in capturing small 
fish, which I thought were yellow perch, near the 
shore. One of the young birds made a circuit farther 
up the lake and struck a lake trout. He had some 
difficulty in rising from the water, but slowly suc- 
ceeded. Before he took his course toward the place 
15 



226 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

where the parent birds were on the watch, a young 
eagle dashed out from the point and with a fierce 
scream started in pursuit. At the same moment the 
old ospreys started to defend their young. They 
were not in time. The eagle had almost reached the 
young hawk, when it dropped the fish. The eagle 
did not seize it before it struck the water, and in 
four or five similar cases I never saw the fish caught 
in its descent. While the eagle was struggling to 
rise after it had seized the fish, and before he was 
twenty feet from the water, one of the ospreys made 
a swoop and struck his claws into the eagle with 
such force that both went into the lake, where they 
separated. As the eagle rose a second time it was 
struck by the second osprey and again forced into 
the lake. I think he was struck in this manner four 
times, when the old eagles came to his rescue and 
the ospreys retired, screaming defiance, and one of 
them carrying the fish which had been the cause of 
the contest. But the eagle was disabled and could 
not rise. One of the 'guides went for him in a boat, 
but before he could reach him he was drowned. His 
back was found to have been s<o torn by the talons 
of the fish-hawks that the wounds would have been 
mortal if he had fallen upon the shore. 

In the early days of March in a subsequent year 
I was in the shop of Mr. Hurst, a taxidermist in 
Albany, when he received by express from some place 
in the Adirondacks two young eagles which had 
evidently been killed a few days before. They were 
covered with a cream-colored down and only a few 
primaries and tail-feathers had just commenced their 
growth. They were probably about a month old. 
The period of the eagle's incubation cannot be less 



OWLS, FALCONS, AND' EAGLES. 227 

than thirty days, consequently the eggs in this case 
must have been laid in December or January. How 
they could have been protected from the cold in a 
locality where the mercury often fell below zero is a 
question for every one to settle for himself. Obvi- 
ously the male must have taken a part in the process 
of incubation. 

The eagle is a mighty hunter. The remnants of 
half -consumed fish, rabbits, ruffed grouse, and other 
birds were so numerous about the nest that the car- 
rion stench sometimes floated to our camp, a mile 
below. The quick digestion and rapacious appetites 
of such a family must have been liberally supplied 
when the remains of the feast were so abundant. 

The pines are no longer to be seen. The lumber- 
man has invaded Long Lake, and with the pines the 
nest of the eagles has gone, thus establishing another 
crime for which the invaders of what ought to be a 
preserve are responsible. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

Novelties of Official Experience. 

I cannot expect my readers to get as much enter- 
tainment as I did out of some of my early experi- 
ences in the Treasury, which were not provided for 
in the regulations. But I will describe two or three 
of them on the chance that they may be found worth 
reading. 

One morning within the first month of my official 
life I found upon my table a box of mahogany, inlaid 
with silver, bearing a tablet on which was engraved 
my name with "' Honorable" conspicuously prefixed. 
When opened, I found, reposing upon a velvet-lined 
interior, a pair of revolvers, silver and ivory mounted 
and decorated in a very exquisite style. There was 
a note requesting my acceptance of the box from the 
agent of a corporation which had constant dealings 
with the department. Inquiry of my colored mes- 
senger disclosed that the box had been placed upon 
my table by a clerk whose duty it was to enter checks 
for the payment of accounts in the order of their re- 
ceipt from the Secretary, and to present them to the 
Register for signature, after which they were sent by 
mail to the payees. It was a matter in which the 
clerk had no discretion. But he could, by violating 
his instructions, occasionally advance the payment 
of a check for a few days, and by a manipulation of 
his books conceal the irregularity. Some of these 
checks were for large amounts, so that a few days 

228 



NOVELTIES OF OFFICIAL EXPERIENCE. 229 

saved would be a great convenience to the payees as 
well as a considerable saving of interest. This clerk 
had held the position for many years, and found it 
very difficult to maintain his family on a salary of 
only $1,400 per year. 

The clerk was summoned, and entered with that 
fawning obsequiousness which was common between 
clerks of a higher and a lower grade, and which was so 
offensive that I put an end to it with the first op- 
portunity. Bowing and scraping, he began to speak 
as he advanced. He begged my pardon for his as- 
surance, but the agent of the corporation had 

presented every in-coming Register with a pair of 
the revolvers made by the company. He had left the 
box with him, with a request that it might be laid, 
with his compliments, on the Register's table! 

I told this clerk when he next addressed me to re- 
member that he was an officer of the Treasury and a 
man — not a menial ; to stand upright and look me in 
the face. 

" Now tell me," I said, " do you say that this pres- 
entation was made in pursuance of a custom?" 

"Oh, yes, sir! It has always been. At all events, 
ever since I have been in the bureau, whenever a 
new Register was appointed. No objection was ever 
made to it." 

"Have you received such presents?" I asked. 

"Yes, sir," he answered. "And so have others. 
The agent has said to me that the corporation had so 
many drafts coming through the Treasury that it 
was very important to them to have their business 
done promptly. They would consider it a favor if I 
would accept a little present occasionally. It is dif- 
ficult, sir, to live upon our small salaries." 



230 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

I told the clerk that out of consideration for his 
family I would not remove him for this grave of- 
fence. But he must return my present, and that 
thereafter any employee of the bureau who accepted 
any present from any one having business with it 
would be instantly removed when the facts came to 
my knowledge. 

This treatment broke up the custom of accepting 
presents. But it was felt to be a great hardship b}- 
the old employees. It was regarded as depriving 
them of a legitimate means of adding to their 
income. 

I wish I could write a sentence of such power that 
it would induce Congress to make for these poor 
clerks in the department such compensation as they 
deserve. I have no words strong enough to express 
the views on this subject which I entertain. There 
were several hundred of them in my bureau. Their 
salaries were fixed long ago, when money had 
double its purchasing power in 1800. When the war 
came on these salaries were made subject to a heavy 
internal revenue tax, and they were paid in currency, 
which once fell to a discount of sixty per cent. Yet 
they served the Government with such fidelity that 
there was absolutely no loss by their error or fraud. 
A more industrious, faithful body of public servants 
could not exist. If their compensation were increased 
fifty per cent from its present rate, no injustice would 
be done the country and only scant justice to them. 

In the first year, and in fact through the whole 
war, there were in Washington many chevaliers 
(V Industrie, who were well dressed and preserved 
the bearing of gentlemen, but who had no visible 
means of support. I was to learn from a peculiar 



NOVELTIES OF OFFICIAL EXPERIENCE. 231 

and not very agreeable experience how one of them 
managed to meet the demands of the butcher, the 
baker, and the candlestick maker. 

I hare always been conscious of a personal defect 
which through all my life has been a great obstacle 
to my success. It is a positive inability to recognize 
the names or the faces of gentlemen whom I ought 
to know. No 3 T ear has passed in which I have not 
offended good friends by passing them in the street 
without recognition, or in some way giving them 
the impression of my deliberate intention to slight 
them. As the defect was one which I could not rem- 
edy, I have endeavored io atone for it by invariably 
seeming to recognize every one who first recognized 
me. 

At a Presidential reception one evening, early in 
18G2, when I was in conversation with the Marshal 
of the District, a well-dressed gentleman bowed to 
me with an air of familiar recognition, and I nat- 
urally returned his salute. After he had passed, but 
while he was still within view, I asked : 

"Marshal, who is that gentleman? He always 
bows to mo. Evidently he is some one whom I 
ought to know; but I am wholly unable to recall his 
name or where I have met him. What is his name 
and position?" 

The marshal's face assumed a look of unmistakable 
surprise. " Well, now, that is excellent," he said. 
" Do you tell me that you do not know that gentle- 
man, and ask me his name and occupation? Come, 
now! You don't mean that. You cannot be seri- 
ous. You must know him much better than you do 
me." 

" I assure you that I was never more serious. I 



232 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

have met him in the street, possibly in my office-, 
but I cannot remember that I have ever spoken to him 
or had any business with him. I think I must have 
had, for he always recognizes me with the air of a 
familiar acquaintance." 

"Well, well!" he said. "This is very rich. If 
anything could astonish me your statement would. 
That man is Major G., of New York. He is under- 
stood to be not only a very old friend of the Register 
of the Treasury, but a species of business adviser. 
That officer is supposed frequently to avail himself 
of the major's long experience in Washington and 
his knowledge of affairs. He has the entree to the 
department at all times and access to the Register. 
It is rather unkind of you to say that you do not 
know such an old and influential friend." 

" I shall have to do it, nevertheless. I now, upon 
reflection, do remember that I have seen him in the 
bureau, where I supposed he had some business. 
However, I can leave him to enjoy his supposed re- 
lations, since they do me no harm." 

" You do not quite understand the pecuniary value 
of such a relation," said the marshal. " The major 
contrives to make money, and a considerable amount 
of money, by it." 

" How is that possible?" I asked. 

" The city is thronged with contractors and men 
who have claims which are constantly passing 
through the Treasury. It is a good thing for them 
to have a friend at court who can get their claims 
taken up and passed upon out of their order — who 
can ascertain just when they will be paid or assist in 
procuring their early pa} T ment. Such services are 
valuable. Contractors are willing to pay for them. 



NOVELTIES OF OFFICIAL EXPERIENCE. 233 

The major is understood to earn a very fair income 
out of his close relations with you." 

"That cannot be possible. There is not a man 
living who could advance the payment or allowance 
of a claim by so much as one hour. The regulations 
prohibit all such favoritism." 

" No doubt such is the fact, but strangers are not 
aware of it, and Major G. is not the only man who 
does business here on the capital of his influential 
position. He has some facilities for obtaining in- 
formation from your office. How otherwise could he 
tell on what day a check for an account would be 
drawn?" 

" That is possible by co-operation with a clerk. 
But this could only happen when accounts to a large 
amount had been liquidated, only a certain propor- 
tion of which could be paid daily. Such informa- 
tion would be restricted to two or three days in every 
case and could not be of much value." 

" It is of value enough to trade upon, " said the 
marshal. " If you make inquiry I think you will 
find that much of this business is transacted and 
that it is regarded by many as legitimate." 

I was disposed to do Major G. no injustice. I asked 
a city friend who had claims passing through the 
Treasury to look into the matter in his own way. 
Major G. rose to the first cast of the fly. For a 
moderate per cent on the amount of his collections 
the major agreed to give my friend all the advantages 
of his intimacy with the Register, and hinted that 
when it became very important to his principal he 
could procure the payment of a claim by increasing 
the pressure. In such cases the commission must be 
increased, for it must be divided with others. 



234 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

The next morning a written order was delivered to 
the doorkeeper and posted upon the doors of all the 
rooms in the Register's office which had any connec- 
tion with payments, to the effect that under no cir- 
cumstances would Major G. be permitted to enter 
that office or any room under the Register's control, 
except upon the written order of the Secretary of the 
Treasury. This order was the subject of much com- 
ment, and the authority of the Register to make it 
was fiercely disputed. It had the effect to convert 
the major into a watchful spy upon all the official 
and personal conduct of the Register. But it broke 
up his business, and I never heard afterward that 
any one trading upon his acquaintance with the 
Register of the Treasury was able to make it profit- 
able. 

We all had to watch the balances of our bank ac- 
counts very closely when our salaries were paid in 
notes which were at a discount of sixty per cent 
and subject to a large internal revenue tax in addi- 
tion. In the beginning of 1862, for the first time in 
my life, when my bank account was written up, it 
showed a balance in my favor fifty dollars greater 
than I was able to make it. This balance increased 
monthly until it amounted to two hundred and fifty 
dollars, an amount as unexpected to me as if it had 
fallen from the sky. I wanted it so much that I 
was quite contented to accept it without very close 
inquiry. 

In due time the explanation came. An old, a poor 
and very worthy friend had asked me to do what I 
could to secure for his son an appointment to a clerk- 
ship of the first class, with an annual salary of $1,200. 
I had recommended him, he had received the ap- 



NOVELTIES OF OFFICIAL EXPERIENCE. 235 

pointment, was assigned to duty in my own bureau, 
and the matter had passed from my mind. One day 
the clerk solicited an interview. He was very much 
troubled, he said. Illness in his family and the in- 
ability of his father to assist him had so increased 
his expenses that he found it very difficult to make 
his payments to me. Would 1 not oblige him by 
postponing a part of the amount due to me and 
permit him to pay it out of his salary for the 
second year? He had paid almost half of the debt, 
but it was almost impossible for him to continue the 
pa3 T ments ! 

"What are you talking about?" I demanded. 
"You owe me nothing. Why do you ask me to 
postpone the payment of a claim which has no 
existence?" 

"You were to know nothing about it, I under- 
stood," he said; "but I wished to comply with the 
custom, which I was told was to pay for an appoint- 
ment — one-half the salary for the first year! You 
procured the place for me, and I assure you I will pay 
the balance just as soon as I can save the money. 
There are $350 still 3 T our due !" 

I repudiated the implied contract and sent him a 
check for the $250 he had paid into the bank to my 
credit. This check he refused to present. Years 
afterward the bank wished to close the account, and 
the amount was used by me. It is the only profit I 
was ever conscious of making out of my connection 
with the Treasuiy. Instead of gaining any credit 
for not collecting the balance out of the poor clerk, I 
learned that I was regarded as a very foolish man 
who had neglected his opportunities. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 
The Death of Abraham Lincoln. 

I once thought that nothing could induce me to 
recall the events of the 16th of April, 1865. It was 
a day of national mourning such as the Republic 
never saw before, such as I devoutly hope it may 
never experience again. There was no doubt of its 
sincerity. A stranger would have said it was uni- 
versal, for the few who did not participate in the gen- 
eral sorrow did not show themselves after an early 
hour in the morning. For there was a desperately 
savage element in the grief which pervaded all 
classes. The servants in the breakfast-room of a 
large New York hotel refused to take another order 
until the housekeeper was out of the hotel. She had 
said that "Old Lincoln had got what he deserved." 
At an early hour on Broadway a person had said " he 
was glad that Lincoln was out of the way." The 
crowd, by a common impulse, set upon him like 
ferocious animals. He was kicked, buffeted, and 
stripped almost naked before the police could rescue 
him. The same feeling seemed to pervade all 
classes — sorrow for the death of the President, a 
fierce thirst for vengeance upon his assassins, some 
fears for the future, and a general wish that the 
gloom of that day might speedily be replaced by 
brighter hopes and never again be recalled. 

But time, which in the end makes all things even, 
236 



THE DEATH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 237 

will blunt the sharpest grief. When, recently, a 
highly valued lady friend placed at my disposal a 
letter written only one day later by the graceful pen 
of a veteran observer at the capital, I learned that I 
could read of our great President's taking-off with- 
out pain, and even with a kind of chastened pleasure. 
I have learned that a very general desire exists 
among the thoughtful of the generation born since 
the Civil War to read accounts of its incidents truth- 
fully written by those who saw or participated in 
them. I am permitted to gratify this desire by the 
publication of Mr. Blair's letter, and I will add to it 
some recollections of my own. 

Only the savage elements in our nature find their 
gratification in war. Probably there never was a 
war in which there were not in each of the contend- 
ing nations or parties some who were wicked and 
reckless enough to be willing to employ against their 
adversary the secret skill of the poisoner and the 
knife and bullet of the assassin. But their judgment 
is grossly at fault who would impute to a people or a 
nation the responsibility for sporadic cases of this 
kind or for individual cases of cruelty. If threats of 
assassination had controlled their conduct many of 
our eminent men in civil as well as military life would 
have been hampered by a very constant restraint. 
But these threats, even when communicated by our 
representatives abroad, were but slightly regarded. 
It was scarcely possible to defend the President or 
members of his Cabinet against assassination. 
Therefore these threats were not noticed. Mr. 
Seward, to whom was attributed much of the wicked- 
ness of the Administration, rode almost daily in his 
open carriage. Very late at night, and many nights 



238 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

in succession, Secretaries Chase and Stanton were 
met on their way, on foot, from their official labors 
to their often sleepless pillows. The President 
walked or drove all about the city. It was only 
when he went out to live at the Soldiers' Home, 
when he knew the city swarmed with desperate men, 
that he could be persuaded to have a small escort of 
cavalrymen. We did not even then really believe 
that he was in danger. The threats against him were 
regarded as the idle vaporings of disordered brains. 

We all knew that the war was approaching its 
end. The hope was dawning of a brighter future for 
the country. The members of the Cabinet were men 
of cold rather than sympathetic natures. They were 
appreciated and esteemed, but they were not loved. 
It was otherwise with the President. None who 
were near enough to be witnesses of his incessant 
labors, who knew how heavily his responsibilities 
bore upon him, could look upon the sad face of that 
earnest man without a wish for his happiness. Just 
then a great personal tenderness for him began to fill 
the hearts of the people. The colored race had no 
doubt of his supernatural character. To each of 
them he was a personal redeemer. He had given 
them freedom; he did not despise, he loved them. 
The personal affection of four or five million individ- 
uals, albeit of an inferior race, is a great possession. 
Its influence was extending over the white race. 
The pressure of the imperious duties of every hour 
was relaxing; we were having more time for reflec- 
tion. We were beginning to know how great and 
how good a man our President was, and to reproach 
ourselves because we had not long before made the 
discovery. 



THE DEATH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 239 

If he would gain even a moderate comprehension 
of the affection of the people for Abraham Lincoln 
and of the shock produced by the announcement of 
his death, the student of history must study his 
public addresses, from his departure from Spring- 
field, and he should commit to memory his memorable 
words spoken upon the field of Gettysburg. He 
should pause over the weighty counsels of the second 
inaugural address. Its closing sentence will show in 
what a spirit the President addressed himself to his re- 
maining duties. The student will not pass by the im- 
promptu speech on the 17th of March on the presen- 
tation of a captured rebel flag, in which there was 
no note of triumph, but the thoughtful deduction 
that our "erring brethren," as he called them, had 
drawn upon the last of their resources when they 
asked the negro to fight for them, and we could now 
see that the end was at hand. Follow him on the 
25th of March to the Army of the Potomac and his 
interview with Grant and Sherman at City Point; 
read his dispatches to Stanton on the last day of 
March and the first two days of April. They have 
no sound of conquest ; they close with the message : 
" All seems well with us ; everything is quiet just 
now." In the early dawn of the next morning he 
announces that " General Grant reports Petersburg 
evacuated, and he is confident that Richmond also is." 

Follow him in his incredible entrance into the 
rebel capital on the day following its capture. 
Within sight of its spires, he asks the admiral of 
the war-ship if he will permit his sailors to gather the 
wild flowers which his 3 r oung son has discovered on 
the river bank, " for the boy loves flowers." See him 
with his son leave the war- vessel with the admiral 



240 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

and row in the open boat a mile up to the landing. 
See his leisurely walk up the street to the house just 
left by the President of the Confederacy, now the 
headquarters of the Union commander. Multitudes 
of the emancipated crowd around and seek to touch 
the garments of their benefactor, as with streaming- 
eyes they shout their thanksgivings. Truly, as he 
said, " it is a great thing to be responsible for the 
freedom of a race." Note the historic picture as he 
removes his hat and bows in silence to the old negro 
who exclaimed : " May de good Lord bless you, 
President Linkum." Truthfully did one write at 
the time : " That bow upset the forms, customs, and 
ceremonies of centuries. It was a death-shock to 
chivalry and a mortal wound to caste." 

Let the student follow him when, with eyes of the 
loyal people upon him, he returns to the capital. He 
had endeared himself to the soldiers, to the whole 
people, by innumerable acts of kindness and love. 
Once only was his voice again heard in public. It 
was a speech of thanksgiving, of care for the cap- 
tured, of justice to all. There was in it no exultation 
over the fallen. Then with what joy he dictated the 
order to stop drafting and recruiting, to curtail all 
war expenses, to remove all restrictions upon trade 
and commerce consistent with the public safety. 
Even then the student will have but a faint idea how 
the people loved their President in the hour when he 
fell. 

I had left Washington on the afternoon of April 
14th, not strong in bod}' but rejoicing in spirit, for 
although neither rebel army had surrendered, we all 
knew that the end of the war was near. Washing- 
ton was shadowing with the Stars and Stripes. I 



THE DEATH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 241 

went to Hie Executive Mansion to take leave of the 
President. So many were waiting, the President 
seemed so much occupied with pressing business, 
that I came away without sending in my card. 
Salutes were being fired. A regiment, the term of 
service of which had expired, crowded the station. 
They were going home ! They were like boys aban- 
doned to the pleasures of the hour. I mingled with 
them, I heard their stories of the camp and the bat- 
tle, shaded with tender memories of the fallen. 
There were crowds at the station and the sounds of 
saluting cannon. It was a happy contrast to the 
scenes at the same station four years before when I 
was on my way to Washington. 

The Hoffman House, on Madison Square, had 
just been opened by the brothers Daniel D. and 
John P. Howard. There I met my familr. Weary 
in body I retired to my apartments. I could not 
sleep. The excitement was too intense, too universal. 

At an early hour, long before daylight the next 
morning as I lay awake in bed, I heard voices in the 
hall. " Revolution in Washington — the President 
murdered. The} r are killing everybody !" I bounded 
to my feet, hastily dressed, and, clearing three or 
four steps at a time, reached the office, which was 
already filled with an anxious and excited crowd. 
There was a bulletin board on which was written : 
" Murder of the President ! Secretaries Seward and 
Stanton assassinated ! Terrible excitement at 
Washington ! The President dying !" too soon fol- 
lowed by the words, " The President is dead !" 

The mind acts quickly under great pressure ; mine 
leaped to the conclusion that we might have a day of 
bloody revolution. Counselling my family on no ac- 
16 



242 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

count to leave their rooms until I returned, I called a 
carriage and told the driver to take the back streets and 
drive to Pine Street as rapidly as possible. It was not 
yet daylight, and yet the open space on the west side of 
Madison Square was filled with excited people. We 
drove rapidly to the Assistant Treasury in Pine 
Street, which was not yet open. Here I dismissed 
my carriage and made my way on foot down Will- 
iam and across Wall Street to the Custom House. 
As I ascended the stone steps, forcing my way 
through the crowd, some one exclaimed : " He can 
tell us about Lincoln !" It was Prosper M. Wet- 
more. " Speech ! Speech !" roared the crowd as I 
sought to make my way into the building. Then 
the thought flashed over me that I might say some- 
thing which would allay the excitement. I turned 
and, standing on a narrow ledge ot stone that formed 
the ledge or sill of a window, faced such a crowd as 
I have never since seen in Wall Street. Up to 
Broadway, down toward the ferry, filling William 
Street in front and Broad Street as far on my left 
as I could see, was a crowd of excited men, shouting, 
groaning, and demanding " Speech ! Speech ! Tell 
us about Lincoln ! Lincoln !" Standing upon that 
very narrow space, where I was held in place by Mr. 
Wetmore and others, I spoke a few earnest words. 

There was no introduction. I was unknown to 
most of the audience. "Who are you?" they 
shouted. " You may read his name on your green- 
backs," exclaimed Wetmore, and in a moment busy 
Wall Street, with its twenty thousand spectators, 
was so silent that I sincerely believe my voice could 
have been heard at Broadway. 

I would not record them if I could recall my 



THE DEATH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 243 

words. The thought which I endeavored to enforce 
was that the Confederates had no hand in the murder 
of their best friend — of the friend of a great people 
about to be reunited in a great Republic. " You will 
soon know that he fell by the hand of a madman," 
I exclaimed, just as some one at a window below 
me read out a dispatch that Wilkes Booth was the 
assassin. 

Then a change swept over that multitude of men. 
They had been furiously, dangerously angry. They 
had charged their loss upon an enemy already crushed 
in the field. They were ready to fall upon the dis- 
loyal and tear them limb from limb. The knowledge 
that the public calamity was the act of a madman 
relieved them. A wave of grief swept over the crowd 
beneath which the very stones seemed to tremble 
with emotion. As rapidly as it had collected, the 
crowd melted away, and silence fell upon the theatre 
of speculation. 

The following letter, written two days after the 
death of the President, throws a vivid flash-light 
upon the situation at the capital. It was written by 
Francis P. Blair, a veteran editor, observer, corre- 
spondent, and friend of the Union, and addressed to 
a lady whose graceful pen and sterling qualities have 
secured for her the warm friendship of so many of 
our public men. The kindness of Mrs. Cornelia W. 
Martin, of Auburn, N. Y., enables me to give this 
letter to the public : 

Washington, Monday, April 17th, 1865. 
My dear Friend: — Since your letter was received, our city- 
has been transformed from the gayest and brightest to the 
gloomiest and saddest. All the houses were illuminated from 
within, and on all the walls and peaks without floated our flag 



■IU PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

rich in its color and stars, and for more than a week the salutes of 
cannon shook the air with glad tidings — when in an instant the 
pageant sank down and the lights were extinguished when 
the pistol-shot put an end, to the life that had brought the 
peace and deliverance we were celebrating. A grand torch- 
light procession was actually marching, with banners flying, 
through the avenue at the very moment when the assassin 
struck his victim. The whole city stalked about in its gloom 
while the President was dying. His spirit fled as the morn- 
ing dawned. My family would not wake me to witness this 
sad change of scene, although it was known to them ; the 
military having surrounded my house at daylight, to protect 
its inmates from what was supposed to be the beginning of a 
sort of political St. Bartholomew. One of the assassins, who 
was to have killed the Vice-President, occupied the room ad- 
joining his at the Kirkwood House, where he lodged after his 
return from Richmond. A card sent to him by Booth was 
carried by mistake to the Vice-President, who did not under- 
stand the admonition given by the principal to his accomplice 
until the tragic scene in the theatre explained it. 

The message did not give the clew to the person to whom 
it was addressed, whose heart, it seems, failed him, and he 
left his room locked the night of the catastrophe ; but his 
bowie-knife was found concealed in his bed the next morning. 
It is wonderful, but the man who stabbed Mr. Seward, his son 
and servant, though well known, has not been arrested. 

The horse on which Booth fled has been found, but no clew 
to his rider. It is thought by many that he remains concealed 
in the city. Letters found in his trunk show that the scheme 
was long meditated and all the means for its execution and 
the escape of the actor well prepared. General Grant was 
expected to be with the President, and the knife that the 
murderer brandished was for him. I have this moment re- 
turned from an interview with General Grant. He showed 
me a dispatch just received from General Sherman, contain 
ing one from General Johnson, proposing a suspension of hos- 
tilities to arrange matters through General Grant, which, 
Sherman replies to Johnson, may be effected upon like terms 
as those arranged with Lee. So you see the " wild wai'" is 
over and gentle peace is returning. Grant, too, has just re- 



THE DEATH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 245 

ceived a special from Wilson, commanding the army in 
which Andrew moves, confirming the rumor of his taking 
Selma, a great body of prisoners and of munitions, provisions, 
and the machinery which was established at that depot. 
Grant also told me that Hancock was on this very day com- 
pounding matters with the guerilla chief, Mosby. This is the 
fellow who has led all the raids into Maryland and to whom 
all the danger to me and mine at Silver Spring was attributa- 
ble. His band of troopers could in two hours reach my house 
from their lurking-places near the fords of tbe Potomac. 
They could have taken me from my bed on any dark night and 
carried me off as a victim for any of their gang, and during 
the last four years I have had some secret intimations that 
they could avenge themselves if their will inclined them or 
any exigency prompted them to use such means. I am, dear 
madam, yours very cordially, 

F. P. Blaib. 

P. S. —Mobile is taken. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 
Savannah in Winter and in War. 

Sherman had driven his army like a wedge of steel 
through the body of the Confederated States, from 
Nashville to Atlanta, from Atlanta to the sea. 
Hazen had stormed Fort McAllister. Hardee had 
evacuated and General Frank P. Blair had led the 
seventeenth army corps into the city of Savannah, 
and Sherman had made of that city, with its many 
thousand bales of cotton, a Christmas gift to the 
President of the Republic. 

With this present came northward a wail of famine 
and of suffering. When Hardee with the Confed- 
erate army marched out of the city into the morasses 
of South Carolina, there followed him every wheeled 
vehicle drawn by every horse and mule, transporting 
the last barrel of pork and beef and flour and the 
last bushel of rice. He had left nothing for the sub- 
sistence of the people, and they were starving. So 
ran the report which was almost universally believed. 

Straightway the people of New York City, without 
distinction of party, sect, or condition, forgot the fir- 
ing upon Fort Sumter, the horrors of Andersonville, 
the almost four years of bloody war, and remembered 
only that the people of Savannah were Americans 
and that they were hungry. In a single morning a 
large committee was named by the Chamber of Com- 
merce to receive contributions of provisions; the 

246 



SAVANNAH IN WINTER AND IN WAR. 247 

committee was organized, named a depot where sup- 
plies might be sent, and before nightfall there were 
contributed provisions enough to load a steamer, the 
owners of which made her charter their own contri- 
bution. She was loaded in the night and the next 
morning was ready to be cleared for Savannah. 

Her clearance involved a difficulty. The War De- 
partment objected. " To exhaust the supplies of the 
enemy," said Secretary Stanton, "is one of the ob- 
jects we are trying to accomplish ; it is one of the 
most effectual means of making war. To feed him, 
or to feed the families of soldiers who are in the 
field righting our own armies, would prolong the 
war and make us the butt of other nations. Why 
do you ask me to do what you would not do yourself 
in my place?" he demanded when at the request of 
friends in New York I asked him to permit the 
steamer to be cleared. " I will not do it. If the 
people of New York City want to feed anybody, let 
them send their gifts to the starving prisoners from 
the Andersonville stockade. They shall not with my 
consent send supplies to the rebels in the very State 
in which the enormities of that hell are perpetrated !" 

I could not answer the Secretary and I wanted to 
accommodate my friends in New York. I was in 
a strait betwixt two, and I had learned what to do 
in such a situation. I went to the President and laid 
the case with Secretary Stanton's objections fairly 
before him. "Stanton is right," he said, "but the 
Georgians must not be left to starve, if some of them 
do starve our prisoners. However, I will not offend 
Stanton unless I can make something by the transac- 
tion. I will compromise. If you will go on the 
steamer and make a report upon the actual condition 



248 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

of the people, I will do better than Pharaoh did by 
the Israelites — I will let the steamer go." 

I accepted the condition and the mission, went to 
New York the same evening, and as soon as the Cus- 
tom House was open the next morning submitted the 
President's order, obtained the clearance, and by 
twelve o'clock the vessel was ready to sail. 

The manifest of the steamer's cargo was not sug- 
gestive of famine nor even of destitution. It was 
midwinter, when fresh provisions could be transported 
without risk. The hold was filled to the deck-beams 
with barrels of flour, barrels and other packages of 
salted and canned beef, fish, and vegetables. Smoked 
hams and bacon were thrown into every crevice. 
Between the decks in close proximity were suspended 
on hooks the carcasses of fat beeves, calves, pigs, and 
sheep. All the staterooms unoccupied by the com- 
mittee and the commissioner were crowded with 
layers of dressed turkeys, geese, ducks, and chickens. 
From manifestations after our arrival I was led to 
believe that there were fluids on board of higher 
proof than mineral waters. 

The captain or skipper of the steamer was an orig- 
inal. He was a native of the eastern shore of New 
Jersey and was about fifty 3 r ears of age. He stood six 
feet high, and carried a back and shoulders broad 
enough and a backbone stiff enough for two or- 
dinary men. His face was intensely red — his hair 
bleached from dark brown to a straw color by long ex- 
posure. His whole life had been passed at sea. He 
had risen from boy-of-all-work on a coal-carrying 
schooner, through all the grades, to the command of 
a three-master, from which he had been transferred 
to a small steamer as mate, and had attained to the 



SAVANNAH IN WINTER AND IN WAR. 249 

captaincy of the largest in a considerable fleet of 
coasting steamers. 

He began by driving his passengers ashore to their 
homes after what he called decent winter clothing. 
"You are going around Hatteras in January," he 
said, "an' that ain't no summer excursion. I don't 
want to report you frozen to death on my hands. 
You had better put on all the flannels you've got in 
your chists, two or three pair of thick trowses, and 
as many coats. Clap an oilskin suit a-top of them, 
with a buffalo or a fur coat for real lively stirring 
weather, and you may be happy off Hatteras. Bet- 
ter to lose an hour now than to send you, frozen mum- 
mies, back to the bosoms of your families." 

We were glad enough of the captain's foresight 
before we passed Sandy Hook. It was very cold in 
New York City and it grew colder every hour until 
we entered the mouth of the river at Fort Pickens. 
The red-heat of the coal -stove in the cabin was all 
absorbed by the circle of shivering landsmen gathered 
around it, while the captain danced and roared his 
orders above the howling of the wind in the very 
exuberance of his animal spirits. 

The next day was one of uneventful cold. We 
were principally employed in keeping warm. At 
nightfall, when we retired to the seclusion of the 
cabin, the captain informed us that we were off the 
capes of Virginia. We passed the evening in games 
of whist and chess. About ten o'clock the captain 
rushed into the cabin exclaiming, " There's merry 
h — 1 to pay in-shore. I think it is another attack 
on Fort Fisher. I have half a mind to run in and 
see. It will not cost us more than four or five hours' 
delay." 



250 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

We went on deck in a body, the captain not stop- 
ping until he reached the mast-head. He declared 
that he could see the flashes of the guns on the south- 
ern horizon ; we could only hear a dull, heavy roar, 
now swelling and again falling, but never quite dying 
away. The flashes of the guns soon became visible 
from the decks, and in a couple of hours the whole 
magnificent spectacle was imprinted in flashes and 
curves of fire upon the southern sky. The curves of 
fire must have been made by the burning fuses of 
the shells, one of which occasionally burst in its 
transit, lighting up the whole scene. The fire from 
the ships was constant; we were not near enough to 
see whether it was answered from the fort. We 
pursued our voyage until the light fell below the 
horizon, for we had no knowledge how long the 
bombardment might continue. The dull roar of 
the guns was heard long after the lines of fire had dis- 
appeared. 

The next morning we were off Cape Hatteras and 
the low sandy shore was no longer visible. Mighty 
seas overtaking us threatened to swamp our steamer, 
but a little in advance of the top of the wave her 
stern rose gently, the sea rolled under her, and 
rushed to break into masses of white foam over the 
shallow bottom that seemed directly in our course. 
Our captain said there was a channel very narrow 
and very crooked, and he was bound to follow it. 
Glass in hand he went up to the mast-head. From 
his perch he shouted his orders to the two men at the 
wheel, turning the bow of the vessel now this way, 
now that, always keeping it in the narrow space 
marked by the green unbroken wave. There he stood 
for three long hours, until our good ship was plough- 



SAVANNAH IN WINTER AND IN WAR. 251 

ing the unbroken sea ; the white foam lay behind us, 
and we knew the danger was passed. 

"You must know this coast well, captain, to be 
able to pilot your ship through that crooked channel, " 
I said, as he came down to his post on the bridge. 

"I reckon I ort to," he replied. "I've known 
her for more'n fort}^ year. I know her bottom bet- 
ter'n I do her shore. Wake me in any watch and 
show me a bit of her bottom and I'll tell you whar 
we are !" 

" Do you coasters take observations and ascertain 
your position by the science of navigation?" I asked. 

" Sartin !" he replied. " I shall take the sun at 
twelve o'clock an' show }'ou how it is done!" 

He took his observation and proceeded to explain 
to us the whole science of navigation. His short 
legs as solid as two iron bars were planted well apart, 
sustaining his square figure with its big head and 
well-tanned face. Between the short, stubby thumb 
and finger of his big right hand he held a shorter 
and more stubby lead-pencil; in the other hand a 
well-worn copy of Blunt's "Coast Pilot." With 
some difficulty he found the margin of a page not 
already covered by the figures of a former example. 
" You git the sun," he said, " and then you set it down 
and go into the book and git the logarithm for to-daj^. 
And then you multiply and divide and subtract, and 
then you add fourteen more, and there you are. It's 
as simple as falling overboard." 

"But why do you multiply and subtract and di- 
vide in this way?" 

" Because them's the right Aggers. It's all down 
here in the "Coast Pilot," all a-taunto!" 

In short, he had not the slightest conception of the 



252 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

reason of any part of the process. But I presume he 
would have navigated a ship to any part of the world 
in perfect safety, without any doubt whatever of his 
own power as a navigator. 

Before the voyage was over our confidence in the 
capacity of our captain was settled. As we approached 
the mouth of the Savannah River he kept the lead 
going until we reached a point some miles off shore 
where there was not more than a half-fathom in ex- 
cess of the steamer's draught of water. Here he 
anchored and set his signals for a pilot. No pilot 
came. He got out his chart of the river and harbor and 
spread it on the post of the windlass, and began to 
survey the shore and soliloquize. "It's risin' three 
year sence I was here last. The bottom hasn't 
changed, I reckon. But the denied rebs have put 
out every light, cut loose every buo3 T , and cut down 
every tree on the shore. What for did they bite off 
their own noses, I wonder? There used to be a live- 
oak on that point. You steered for the flag on 
Fort Pickens until that tree bore; then you opened 
another tree and steered straight for it until you laid 
your ship well into the river, opposite the fort. Now 
there ain't no tree nor no flag on Fort Pickens. Yes, 
there is, and they have just sent it up for some rea- 
son. It's our flag, too." Thus he went on until it 
became evident that he must lie on the bar all night 
or make his own way into the river. 

He gave the order to raise the anchors and place 
one on either bow ready to be let go on the instant. 
A man was also placed on either side forward with 
orders to keep the lead going. He put the vessel 
under a low steam and she began to move slowly 
forward. Answering her helm quickly, she moved 



SAVANNAH IN WINTER AND IN WAR. 253 

right, left, forward, stopped and backed at his com- 
mand. Often there was not more than a foot of 
water under her keel. But before sunset he had 
worked his steamer safely into the river almost up 
to Fort Pickens, when he roared loud enough to be 
heard on shore : 

" Let go them anchors !" 

They dropped into the muddy bottom and brought 
up the steamer under her slow motion in one-third 
of her length. 

" Look there and see what a d — d rebel can do, " 
he said, pointing over the steamer's bow. We looked 
and saw nothing but a small spar one end of which 
appeared to be floating abreast of our vessel. He 
sent a boat with a line to take a turn around it and 
haul it on deck. Then we saw that its larger end 
was anchored at the bottom, while the smaller was 
shod with a steel point. It was then left, the smaller 
end to float with the tide ready to pierce the hull of 
any vessel which struck it. We did not wonder at 
the captain's indignation. If he had known how they 
had planted the river, the city would have had a 
seven years' famine before he would have risked his 
steamer to bring its people supplies. 

Just at nightfall a very respectable colored man 
came on board, and a few minutes later an officer and 
boat's crew from the fort. The officer informed us that 
it would be impossible to ascend the river. The tor- 
pedoes were supposed to have been removed, but there 
was a dam of cribs of timber filled with stone a 
couple of miles below the city, which our engineers 
were removing and would have cleared out within a 
few days. Until that obstruction was removed no 
steamer could go up the river to the city. 



254 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

The colored man, who was a fisherman, said he knew 
of a channel with a bottom of soft mud which en- 
tered the river above the obstruction, and through 
which he thought he could take the steamer in the 
daytime. We therefore lay at anchor all night and 
in the morning our colored pilot took command. He 
told the captain that there was not' a rock, a snag, 
nor a bit of hard ground in the channel through 
which he would take us, so that the worst that could 
happen would be to stick the nose of the steamer into 
the mud until she was released by high water or a 
tug. He was as good as his word. He carried us 
through beds of reeds into places where the mud was 
level with the surface, but our headway was never 
entirely stopped, and we passed the dam, turned into 
the river, and under a good head of steam moved 
up alongside a wharf in the business part of the city. 
Our pilot wanted one of " clem turkeys, " but his fees 
would not come to so much, and he thought he ought 
to have a dollar and a half in good money. We 
thought so too. He went ashore a very happy col- 
ored man, for he carried a market-basket heavy with 
a good cut of beef and a Rhode Island turkey, and 
one of Uncle Sam's golden eagles in his pocket. On 
the day of our arrival an opening was made through 
the dam broad enough for vessels to pass, and a fleet 
of steamers loaded with military supplies which had 
been waiting below came up to the city. One of 
the steamers, which came in that moi'ning proudhy 
bearing the British flag, carried a captain with a rue- 
ful countenance. He had his own pilot on board. He 
had run the blockade, his pilot had evaded all the 
torpedoes and steel-pointed spars, and finding an 
opening in the dam he had steamed up to the city 



SAVANNAH IN WINTER AND IN WAR. 255 

and dropped his anchor between two vessels the com- 
manders of which at sunrise hoisted the Stars and 
Stripes not only on their ships, but on his own. 

The first call I made was upon General Sherman. 
He did not think there was much occasion for our 
expedition, but since our steamer had come he pro- 
posed to see to it that our provisions went to those 
who were truly in want and not to those who were 
able to pay for their own supplies, a proposal which 
met with my hearty co-operation. 

The chief of the commissary department of Sher- 
man's army was an old acquaintance and a fellow- 
Vermonter. Colonel, afterward brevet Major-Gen- 
eral, Amos Beckwith had a deceptive face. He looked 
much like a minister who had failed of success as a 
preacher and given himself up to idleness and regret. 
One would have said that he was a quiet, modest 
man who had no harm in him, who would have made 
a fair chaplain of a regiment in which there were no 
hard cases and of which no severe service was ex- 
pected. In fact, he was a man full of resources, of 
tireless energy and tremendous force. He had fed 
Sherman's army under conditions which would have 
appalled ordinary men — which he himself could not 
have overcome if he had not been able to impart his 
own energy to many others. He hated cant and hum- 
bug. Lazy men were afraid of him. " Beckwith never 
requires any orders," said General Sherman. "Let 
him know where the army or any part of it will be at 
any time, and the supplies will be there. He is the 
only man I ever knew who always does the right thing 
at the right time. He thinks quick and acts quicker !" 

Beckwith received me with cordiality, and, busj" 
as I knew he was, pressed me to be seated and tell 



256 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

him all the news. I was about taking myself away, 
when a committee of the citizens of Savannah was 
announced and invited to enter. 

"Your business, gentlemen?" was the colonel's 
crisp military demand. 

The chairman, a dignified cotton factor, portly 
enough for a Dutch burgomaster, with many words 
expressed his high estimate of General Sherman and 
his staff, and his thanks for their preservation of life 
and property. He opened a river of speech that 
might have flowed on forever. 

"Yes! Omit all that. Come to the point. You 
want something— what is it?" demanded the colonel. 

The speaker began a long way from his conclusion. 
General Hardee was short of transportation ; he had 
taken with him all the horses and mules when he 
evacuated the city; the negroes would no longer 
work unless they were paid in good Northern money 
— they would not touch Confederate notes. The 
United States had. taken possession of the movable 
steam-engines used in discharging vessels. A steamer 
had just arrived from the North with provisions. It 
was necessary to discharge her cargo and cart it to 
the public market. Would Colonel Beckwith be so 
kind as to send a force of men and wagons to unload 
and transport this cargo? 

There were premonitions of a convulsion before 
this speech was half delivered — they materialized 
with a crash as it ended. 

" No ! A hundred times no ! You, traitors, taken 
red-handed, fighting against your flag, permitted to 
go at large when you ought to be hung or imprisoned 
— you asking that brave soldiers be sent to unload 
provisions contributed by charity to save you from 



SAVANNAH IN WINTER AND IN WAR. 257 

starvation ! What lazy, miserable curs slavery made 
of men ! A few years more of it and you would have 
had a nigger to open your eyes in the morning and 
to work your jaws at breakfast. No. I'll see you 
d — d first, a thousand times, as you deserve. I 
may want that steamer any day. If by twelve to- 
morrow she is not unloaded I will discharge her 
and distribute her cargo to the families of men who 
are willing to work and not too lazy to live. I have 
a great mind to do it now. Now get out, all of you ! 
This is a business office and no place for bummers !" 

They left without ceremony. The colonel turned 
to me with an apologetic air. " D — n them !" he 
said. " I have respect for a fighting rebel, but for 
these lazy, cowardly curs — bah ! They will complain 
of me to General Sherman. If you want amuse- 
ment go over to his headquarters." 

A member of his staff who was present took me 
into the quarters of General Sherman by a private 
entrance. In a few minutes the committee appeared. 
The chairman was eloquent over their wrongs; he 
wished to complain of Colonel Beckwith. They had 
asked him for a detail of men to unload a vessel, and 
he had abused and threatened them. They wanted 
him reprimanded and taught how to treat gentlemen 
in future. 

"Are you quite certain that he threatened you? 
It is the first time I ever heard of a threat from 
Beckwith," said the general. 

" He may not have threatened us personally. But 
he did say in his brutal language that if we did not 
unload that vessel d — d quick he would unload her 
and distribute her provisions himself. We ask you 
particularly to prevent that outrage, general !" 
17 



258 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

" Then you had better get to work on that cargo 
at once," said the general. "Beckwith seldom tells 
what he is going to do, but if he told you that he 
will do it without the slightest doubt." 

" But you will at least reprimand him for insult- 
ing the committee?" insisted the chairman. 

"There is some question about that," said the gen- 
eral. " Beckwith is the best commissary I ever knew. 
All through the campaign this army of mine has 
looked to Beckwith for its rations. He has never 
failed them. He has never interfered with my du- 
ties nor I with his, and we agree perfectly. Then 
before I could reprimand him I should have to know 
that I would not have said just what he did under 
the circumstances. Was it not a trifle cool of you 
to ask that men from my army be sent to work for 
you?" 

"I see," said the chairman, "the heel of the con- 
queror is upon us. We must submit. It is useless 
to remonstrate !" 

"I have no time to waste with you, gentlemen," 
said the general. " When you are able to appreciate 
the gentleness with which you have been treated by 
my army, you may come to me for advice, not for 
complaint. Until then you will not do better than to 
follow Beckwith's advice and go to work." 

Two hours later a crowd of citizens were unloading 
the steamer. Twenty-five of them on a rope which 
passed through a snatch-block were marching for- 
ward and back to the song and chorus of a darky, 
whipping barrels out of the steamer's hold. She was 
discharged within twelve hours. Beckwith had got 
good work out of the citizens and their committee. 

I sought every opportunity to converse with the 



SAVANNAH IN WINTER AND IN WAR. 259 

private soldiers in the city. There was a general ap- 
pearance of rugged health and strength and of per- 
sonal cleanliness which surprised me. I stood by a 
window in his headquarters when the division of 
General Geary began its northward march. Every 
man carried his gun, his forty rounds of ammunition, 
his shelter tent, and rations for five days. Each one 
had some articles which contributed to the common 
comfort, axes, bill-hooks, spades, gridirons, frying- 
pans with long handles. Yet with all this burden the 
soldier's step was elastic. Instead of slowly striding 
over a pool of water or an obstruction in the highway 
each line actually bounded over it, as I had seen sheep 
bound over a low fence in a hill-pasture. Geary 
himself was a general worthy of such a force. Over 
six feet high, his body straight and strong as the 
trunk of a forest ash, with the bravery of a lion, he 
was every inch a soldier. 

"What a splendid body of men you command, 
general !" I said to him as the last regiment was 
passing. 

" My friend !" he exclaimed, " I will tell you a 
short story. I crossed the Ohio River with that di- 
vision when it numbered twelve thousand five hun- 
dred men. They were good, strong, brain}^ men from 
the city and country — no better average was ever en- 
listed. To-day there are present for duty only a few 
more than three thousand, and yet I think the fight- 
ing strength of the division was never greater than 
it is at this moment. Many good men have fallen 
upon many battle-fields, others have been sent home 
permanently disabled. Of the others, every one with 
a defect, physical or mental, has been sifted out. 
Those that remain are in perfect health, used to hard 



260 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

service, brave, disciplined soldiers, who have faith in 
their officers, believe themselves to be invincible, and 
are as nearly so as it is possible for men to be. Every 
man knows how to take care of himself. Halt the 
division for twenty minutes and each man will be 
eating his hard tack with a cup of hot coffee in his 
hand." His eyes sparkled as he said, "There is no 
reward for the soldier equal to the consciousness that 
he commands such men !" 

Very soon afterward I learned what General Geary 
had in mind when he spoke of men who knew how 
to take care of themselves. I had spent the night in 
the upper part of the city. About eight o'clock in 
the morning as I was crossing Bull Street, a broad 
boulevard, on my way to the steamer, a large divi- 
sion of men had just entered the street and stacked 
their arms. They had been encamped on a rice-field 
from which the water was excluded by tide-gates. 
Some rebels hazing about in the night had destroyed 
these gates, and when the tide rose the field was 
flooded and the division had literally been " drowned 
out," some individuals saving their baggage with 
difficulty. Five hours later I visited the division by 
invitation. The boulevard had undergone a magical 
change. Unoccupied buildings had furnished the 
lumber. Four posts firmly set in the earth were 
closely boarded for about six feet from the ground. 
A ridge-pole was raised, over it shelter tents were 
stretched, forming a roof. From the bales on the 
dock cotton had been brought for the mattress, over 
which a blanket was stretched and pinned to the 
earth, and here was a dry, comfortable house and 
sleeping-room for six men . Kitchens and cook-rooms 
were provided for each squad, in which a hot dinner 



SAVANNAH IN WINTER AND IN WAR. 261 

with the indispensable hot coffee was in the process 
of preparation. These men knew how to take care 
of themselves ! 

There was a sad procession of negroes in the rear of 
every division. The owners of plantations had aban- 
doned the sick, the young, and the infirm, in many 
cases leaving them destitute. They had been told 
horrible stories — that the Yankees put the able men in 
front of every battle, that the old men, women, and 
children were thrown into the rivers or burned in the 
factories and storehouses. >. 

But these stories produced no impression upon the 
colored race. They knew the Northern soldiers were 
their friends. They would follow them to the ends 
of the earth. An old white-headed man, his body 
crippled by neglect and hard work, said to me : " I 
don't speck to see the land of freedom, but I's gwine 
to follow dat flag ontwell I jest fall an' die in de 
road." I turn away from any farther description. 
The black followers seemed to me more numerous 
than the army. One of them, a white-haired man of 
eighty years, crippled and almost doubled by ill- 
treatment, said to me as he painfully limped after 
Geary's division, " I will follow it ontwell I drap. 
I is goin' north to de land of freedom." 

There were tragic events caused by these ignorant 
colored people. " Will you come to my quarters, where 
I have to dispose of a case of some difficulty?" said a 
general of division to me- one morning. We found 
lying there a man who was said to be a prisoner, a 
typical butternut-colored Georgia cracker, with his 
chest riddled with buckshot. A negro named Samp- 
son, in chains, was seated near him, charged with 
his attempted murder. 



262 PEESONAL REMINISCENCES. 

It was a long time before I could get Sampson's con- 
fidence. He had decided that he would be hung and 
that it was useless for him to attempt any defence. 
I succeeded in convincing him that I was his friend 
and he finally gave way. 

"Yes! He had shot the man," he said, but he 
was not a rebel prisoner. He was a Confederate who 
had changed his clothing with a prisoner, and who 
was to have two hundred gold dollars for killing 
General Geary. He had followed him for four suc- 
cessive days, he said, and had not interfered with 
him until he saw him with his Winchester fire at 
the general, who was passing on horseback. Then 
he dropped him. He would do it again if he had to 
die for it every time. 

" Why do you keep so close a watch over General 
Geary?" I asked. 

" Why, because he is one of President Linkum's 
men, God bless him, and he gave us our freedom," 
he responded. " I knew this fellow was trying to 
kill General Geary. If I could save the general's 
life I didn't care what became of mine. I watched 
him four days and nights. Four times he raised his 
gun to kill the general, and four times I was ready 
to send a buckshot cartridge through him. The last 
time he fired. So did I. If I have killed him and 
saved the general, all right. It's no matter about 
their hanging me." He was not hung; his fidelity 
to his deliverers proved to be a common affair. 

One night I was sleeping in the house of a citizen. 
I was dreaming that Hardee and the rebel Wheeler 
had surrounded and were bombarding the city. I 
dressed myself and rushed into the street, intending 
to go to our steamer. Strong hands arrested and 



SAVANNAH IN WINTER AND IN WAR. 263 

forced me back into the house. "Look," said an 
officer, pointing toward the western horizon, where 
the air seemed full of bursting shells. 

" What is the matter?" I finally asked. 

" The armory is on fire. There are 20, 000 loaded 
shells in it. Every street near the armory has these 
shells buried in it, and they are connected with the 
armory by a fuse. These shells are exploding every 
minute. No one knows the arrangement ; every one 
may take his chance in the destruction of the city 
now going on." 

I shrank back partially under a porch and began 
to reflect upon the situation. The arsenal fronted 
upon a street only one block to the left, at the head 
of which stood my friend's residence. South of this 
line the air was filled with bursting shells. There 
was a lofty tower, to the top of which the water was 
carried by force pumps for distribution over the city. 
A shell opened the side of this tower almost at the 
top, and a great column of water rushed through the 
opening and descended in a curve to the ground. 

But for the courage of Union soldiers, the whole 
city must have been destroyed. The fire department 
was cowardly and powerless. The soldiers formed 
a line around the blocks which seemed to be in dan- 
ger. This line was contracted foot by foot until the 
area where the shells had been planted was defined. 
It proved to be the square on which the armory stood 
and two adjoining squares north of it. Water was 
abundant and these squares were speedily saturated 
with it. The illumination, and with it the alarm, 
was speedily suppressed. Now and then a solitary 
shell burst with a grumbling, discontented sound, 
but its particles fell upon the wet ground and were 



264 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

extinguished. In another hour the danger was 
over. 

General Sherman named a military governor for 
the city, gave him a provost's guard of disabled men, 
and with his army commenced that magnificent 
march northward which terminated at the triumphal 
review in Washington in the following spring. Colo- 
nel Beckwith ordered our steamer into the service, 
as her powerful engines and small draught of water 
eminently fitted her for coast work. Upon my repre- 
sentation of the importance of making an early re- 
port to the President, he released the steamer and 
loaded her with compressed bales of Confederate cot- 
ton for New York City. Her captain was directed 
to coal her from schooners just arrived. The captain 
reported that there was less coal than slate in the 
fuel, and before we were out of the river announced 
that he could not get coal enough out of that stuff to 
keep the vessel off shore in a decent breeze. I there- 
fore took the responsibility of ordering the steamer 
into Hatteras Inlet, where I knew there was a sup- 
ply of fuel. 

For three days I now laid aside all thoughts of the 
war and gave myself up to physical science. An im- 
mense school of porpoises was waiting for us just 
outside the bar of the Savannah River, and kept us 
company all the way to Hatteras Inlet. They seemed 
to get great enjoyment out of the trip. They 
had no difficulty in keeping pace with the steamer. 
Scores at a time shot out of the water in the form of 
a bow, turned a somersault in the air and all came to 
the surface of the water, headed northward. As far 
as we could see in every direction the sea was alive 
with porpoises. Two big fellows, one on each side 



SAVANNAH IN WINTER AND IN WAR. 265 

of the stem of the vessel, not four inches below the 
surface, kept pace with the movement of the steamer. 
Lying upon the bowsprit I watched them for hours. 
I was not able to see that they changed their position 
relative to the vessel.* I went to my stateroom for 
a Winchester rifle. As I walked forward to the 
bow my eye swept the horizon, and the whole 
surface of the sea appeared to be alive with porpoises. 
I sent a bullet into the body of one swimming at the 
vessel's bow. It must have passed through him, but 
he plunged downward at an angle of thirty-five de- 
grees and disappeared. Again I swept the ocean 
with my eye, and not a porpoise was visible. Every 
one had disappeared and we did not see another on 
our homeward voyage. Why they disappeared, what 
the communication was which so promptly advised 
each of his danger, I leave to the reader's imagina- 
tion. 

The channel into Hatteras Inlet was very intricate, 
but our captain threaded it without difficulty. Two 
three-masted schooners which went ashore only a 
few months previously were now fifty yards inland 
and high above the water-level. The tide ran out 
with a strong current which the poor coal would 
scarcely make power enough in our steamer to over- 
come. After some time we got well inside the inlet 
and the steamer swung gently at her anchors. 

Two companies of soldiers encamped at the inlet 
had made a seine not more than fifty feet long and 
some ten feet broad. The} r declined to fish for us, 
but offered us the use of their net. Two men held 
one end of it on the shore while two others walked 
out the length of the net into the swift tideway. 
They had no sooner straightened the net than the two 



266 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

men in the tideway exclaimed that they could not 
hold the net, while the soldiers shouted to them to 
bring the end ashore. They did so, describing a small 
half -circle, but when they hauled in the net it carried 
more than three barrels of fish, almost all of them 
being the young of the striped bass, about ten inches 
long. A more savory fish never came out of the sea. 

With coal of a better quality we made better head- 
way, and in due time were moored alongside the dock 
at the foot of Wall Street. We were not inclined to 
say much about our voyage. If there were starving 
people in Savannah we did not encounter them. The 
citizens we met were quite willing to accept our bene- 
factions, but they seemed to think they were forag- 
ing on the enemy, and gave me the impression that 
they were still unreconstructed rebels. 

Writing after so many years, two incidents of this 
mid-winter voyage are very fresh in my memory. 
One is the vigorous and stalwart carriage of " Sher- 
man's men " and their faith in their general-in- 
chief. There was no trace of the braggart in their 
bearing or conversation. They did not appear to 
know or very much care whither they were going, 
so long as it was northward and in the direction of 
the Confederate army. They called their leader "the 
old man," but there was no trace of disrespect and 
much of affection in the term. "We are going," 
said one, " wherever the old man wants to go. He 
always takes the shortest route to the camp of the 
enemy." General Sherman, too, seemed very fond 
of moving about from corps to corps among his men. 
He could not always be identified, but he could be 
followed b3 r the cheers which followed him every- 
where. Whenever there was unusual activity and 



SAVANNAH IN WINTER AND IN WAR. 267 

the disciplined cheers of thousands of strong voices, 
one usually saw a tall, sharp-eyed man, with long 
boots and a quick movement — that was Sherman. 
This army believed its general to be invincible, he 
believed that his men were unconquerable. 

I saw none of the " bummers" which I had under- 
stood always followed the army. I did see men with 
fine horses who did not seem to be attached to any 
particular corps or divisions and whose movements 
were free and easy. They used to come riding into 
camp, almost buried under a very miscellaneous 
cargo, principally of an edible description. 

The usual followers of the camp were replaced by 
the long procession of the colored, with their faces 
turned toward the land of freedom. It comprised all 
ages, from the white-haired old uncle or mammy of 
ninety years to the baby upon its mother's breast. 
It was very pathetic to see how they were treated by 
the soldiers and the teamsters. I heard no rough, I 
heard many kind words spoken to the pilgrims in 
these processions. The black faces of young children, 
the sad ones of their mothers, looked out from under 
the canvas of the army wagons, the mules in harness 
contentedly carried others, and many were assisted 
by the soldiers. These poor creatures had been aban- 
doned to starvation and death in winter by those 
who claimed to be their owners. I thought, as I saw 
and conversed with them, of the words of Abraham 
Lincoln : " Slavery is wrong ; slavery is unjust ; 
slavery is cruel !" 

The most thoughtful, conservative men whom I 
met on this journey were the colored clerg3 T men. 
One of our generals had told me of an interview 
which had been held with these clergymen during a 



268 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

recent visit of Secretary Stanton, when the Secre- 
tary, General Sherman, and all the generals present 
had been surprised by the intelligence and good sense 
they had exhibited in discussing the complicated 
questions touching their own race which had to be 
immediately dealt with by the general of the army. 
My informant said that after the close of the inter- 
view the Secretar}' declared that the discussion of 
these subjects by a dozen of these clergymen would 
have been creditable and would have excited interest 
in a meeting of the Cabinet, and it gave him new 
hopes for the future of the colored race. The conduct 
of the colored people of Savannah, also, was most 
creditable. Sherman's army brought them freedom. 
If their jo} T had been manifested in some excesses, 
no one would have found fault with them. But the} T 
knew how to govern themselves. They were civil, 
respectful even, to their old masters. For the soldiers, 
or any who came with us from the North, they were 
quick to perforin any service. They even consulted 
the militaiy governor (if I rightly remember, it was 
General Getty [?]) before they decided that they 
would not work for the Southerners except under a 
promise of payment in good Northern money. One 
of the most extraordinary occurrences of the war 
was the manner in which the colored race received 
its freedom. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Teaching School on Hog Island — Its Advan- 
tages and Pleasant Memories. 

If a census had been taken fifty years ago of the 
men who, unassisted, had successfully fought the 
battle of life, a large majority of them would have 
said that their first money was earned by teaching a 
district school. I have never happened to know one 
who did not remember his experiences as a teacher 
with pleasure, and as a very important part of his 
own education. To govern a school he had first to 
learn how to govern himself, and from the little men 
and women in whom he could not fail to become in- 
terested, he took his best lessons in the study of hu- 
man nature. Teaching is less popular now, and the 
same necessity which existed in my boyhood is not 
so prevalent as it was then, and yet I should not 
hesitate to predict more successful lives for those who 
are teaching school this winter than for the more ap- 
parently fortunate ones who are devoting themselves 
to athletic or other sports on a liberal allowance from 
the fortunes of their ancestors. 

An uncle who was a leading lawyer in Franklin 
County was kind enough not only to give me a place 
in his law office, but to take me into his family in 
the last half of my eighteenth year. He lived in the 
village of Swanton Falls, a community which, on ac- 
count of its sympathy with the Canadians in the 

269 



270 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

Papineau rebellion and its resistance to the Presi- 
dent's proclamation of neutrality, had acquired the 
name of "the Kingdom of Swanton." 

Hog Island, a part of the township of Swanton, is 
a portion of land surrounded by the waters of Mis- 
sisquoi Bay and River. Its divisions were the " North 
End" and the "South End." The "North End" 
comprised an extensive marsh, a part of which was 
covered with a first growth of pitch-pine and a very 
limited area of farming lands. It was inhabited by 
large families of the Honsingers, the Donaldsons, and 
the Carleys, great fishermen and mighty hunters of 
muskrats who disdained all such useless expenditures 
as for "skoolin," and no school had been maintained 
among them within the memory of man. The " South 
End," separated from the " mainland " by Maquam 
Bay, about two miles in width, was good agricul- 
tural land, occupied by a number of farmers, who 
were rough and unpolished, but good-hearted, excel- 
lent people with large families of children, for whose 
benefit they desired to maintain a school during the 
winter months of the year. The " North-enders " 
were litigious, and their numerous lawsuits before a 
justice of the peace against their neighbors of the 
"South End," which were defended by my uncle, had 
made me acquainted with most of the farmers on the 
southern part of the island. 

One afternoon in November three of these farmers 
visited the office. I explained that my uncle was 
absent, when to my surprise they said that their busi- 
ness was with me. Thpy were the " prudential com- 
mittee," and wished to hire me to teach their district 
school. The term was three months; the master 
was to "board round," that is, he was to board with 



TEACHING SCHOOL ON HOG ISLAND. 271 

each family in proportion to its number of pupils; 
the wages were to be twelve dollars per month or 
thirty-six dollars for the term. They said the school 
was a small one, there were only about twenty schol- 
ars, and the district had voted that twelve dollars a 
month was all they could afford to pay. 

I explained that I had had no experience in teach- 
ing, but if they thought I would suit them I would 
accept their terms. I then asked them why they 
had waited until the last week in November before 
engaging their teacher, and was informed that two 
teachers had opened the school already that season, 
but both had left, one at the close of the second, the 
other of the fourth day. The fact was, they said, 
that the large boys were a " leetle bit onruly ;" they 
had smoked out the first teacher by climbing on the 
roof of the school-house and stopping up the chimney 
with pieces of turf. The second teacher they had 
stood on his head in a snow-drift ; he was dissatisfied 
and left. The previous winter they had entirely 
broken up the school. Now the committee had de- 
termined to have a school, and if I would take the 
place, one of the committee would come to the school 
and " help me lick any boy who undertook to cut up 
any monkey shines. The boys. had all been licked 
at home by their fathers, " he said, " but it didn't seem 
to do no good. If they were licked every day at 
school the deviltry could be licked out ov 'em. " They 
were greatly surprised when I told them that I should 
decline the assistance of the committee, that I did 
not believe in "licking," and if I taught the school it 
would be without assistance and without flogging. 

We closed the contract, but the committee were 
all despondent. They did not believe I could keep 



272 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

the school a week unless the larger boys were " licked. " 
One of them said that his own boy was about the 
worst of the lot — the very devil must be in him, for 
he had licked him until he was tired and it only 
seemed to make him worse. 

Bright and early on the following Monday morning 
I was on hand. A roaring fire had warmed up the 
log school-house, and all the scholars were present to 
see the new master. The girls were bright and pleas- 
ant-faced, but four of the boys, each heavier and older 
than myself, looked very unpromising, and I saw at 
once that my trouble was to come from them. 

I used the first two days in getting acquainted with 
my pupils, in pleasant conversation and dividing them 
into classes. For a day or two afterward all went 
smoothly. But on Thursday night one of the older 
girls said she wanted to speak to me after the school. 
After the other scholars had left, she told me that the 
boys had decided to send me home to Swanton the 
next (Friday) morning. Three of them were in the 
plot. One of the four said he liked the master ; he 
believed he was "square" and he wouldn't try to 
drive him out. But he had agreed to stand neutral. 
Mart. Clark had undertaken alone to stand the mas- 
ter on his head in a snow-drift, and on the first trial 
the others were not to interfere. She had told them 
that she should tell the master ; the}' had abused her 
and called her a tell-tale and said they would never 
speak to her again. But she didn't care ; she thought 
it was real mean, and so she had told me. She hoped 
I would get a club and beat out their brains if they 
touched me. 

I was the proprietor of a walnut ruler, two feet 
long, and one of its edges was bevelled. It was 



TEACHING SCHOOL ON HOG ISLAND. 273 

very heavy, and when in school I carried it con- 
stantly in my hand. The next morning the school 
was in a high state of expectation. It was nearly an 
hour before the champion appeared. He swaggered 
into the room to his place on one of the high seats 
which had a plank desk in front of it, and sat down 
with his cap on. I walked up to his seat and said 
in a pleasant tone, " Martin, take off your cap !" 

" I shan't take off my cap for no S wanton Falls 
pettifogger !" was his emphatic reply. 

A moment afterward his cap was sailing across 
the room, and still holding the ruler, I had seized his 
collar with both hands and drawn him out of his seat 
with such force that the bench in front was carried 
away and he sprawled over it on to the floor. He 
was on his feet in an instant and seized mj T collar 
with his right hand. His arm was extended, the 
large muscle strained to its utmost tension. That 
muscle I struck with the sharp edge of the ruler with 
all the force of my right arm. With a roar of pain 
like a wounded bull he relaxed his grasp and half 
fell to the floor. 

" Goll darn ye ! You have broke my arm !" he ex- 
claimed, grasping the place where the blow fell, and 
limping about the room with a groan at every step. 
I let him groan for a short time, and then said : 

" Your arm will feel better when it stops aching. 
Now I think you had better pick up your cap, go to 
your seat, and behave yourself. Don't you?" 

He stood for a moment looking down upon the 
floor in a brown-study. Some idea seemed to be strug- 
gling into his mind. Then with the observation, 
" By Goll! I guess I had," he picked up his cap and 
went to his seat. I went on with my exercises. Soon 
18 



274 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

a very subdued voice asked, " Master, can I speak to 
you alone?" "Certainly," I said, and called him to 
my desk. There in a whisper he said: "My arm 
hurts so that I can't study nor do nothing. I wish 
you would let me go home and bathe it with some 
liniment. If I stay till school is dismissed the boys 
will laugh at me." 

I told him that he might go home, but first I 
wanted him to hear what I had to say to the boys. 
Turning to them I said : " Martin and I have settled 
this matter between us. Any boy that speaks to him 
about it will have me to settle with." To Martin I 
said: "Come down to Colonel Benjamin's, where I 
am boarding, and see me this evening." 

He came to see me as I requested. In a few min- 
utes I got his confidence and found that he had prob- 
ably never had any one take any interest in him or 
speak to him kindly. His mother had died when he 
was an infant. I told him I had come there to teach 
that school. I was going to do it and I wanted him 
to help me. If he would, we would have no trouble 
with the other boys; he could make my work easy 
and I hoped to be able to teach him a great deal in 
the next three months. I told him not to make any 
promises then, but to think over what I had said to 
him. 

The next morning he came early and said he didn't 
wish to make any promises, but I would see. And I 
did see. He became my warm friend. He always 
came and built the fire and had the school-house warm 
before my arrival. He told me that the boys had all 
decided that it was better to make me their friend than 
their enemy. But they could not understand why I 
didn't use the whip. Every teacher did that they 



TEACHING SCHOOL ON HOG ISLAND. 275 

had ever heard of ; they expected it, and if the}' had 
not, they would not have thought of resisting me. 

In that school I never struck another scholar. The 
larger boys were ready to do anything for me. They 
found that I wanted to go to Swantcn every Satur- 
day and to return on Monday morning. I had in- 
tended to skate two miles across the bay and then 
walk nearly two miles to S wanton. I was to return 
in the same manner. The boys arranged for one of 
them to take me home and another to come for me 
Monday mornings. Every Monday morning the 
team was at my uncle's door at daylight, having al- 
ready been driven five miles from Hog Island. 

The reader may think that " boarding round " was 
a hardship. It was anything but that. The best bed 
and the best room were for the master. The nice 
things they used to have cooked for him — the dough- 
nuts, the sausages, the spare ribs roasted, the mince 
pies! their memory is fragrant. I would rather have 
them now than a dinner at Delmonico's. 

There is one article of the Hog Island menu which 
I must perpetuate in history. In the months of Octo- 
ber and November there is a fish caught off the 
Island called by the Islanders the white fish or the 
frost fish. I think it is a land-locked shad with its 
form and flavor modified by its new conditions. The 
Islanders select those which are in the best condition, 
dress and corn them. In the winter they cut a hole 
through the ice and sink the fish in the pure cold 
water and leave it there until it is freshened so that 
only just the suspicion of a saltish flavor remains. 
Then properly broiled with butter and pepper, it 
is a breakfast fit for a gentleman or the school-master, 
and too good for any but very honest men. 



276 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

There was not another disagreeable incident in the 
school. I took a personal interest in every scholar, 
and if they did not learn it was no fault of mine. 
Every one of them grew up to be my friend. Poor 
Martin Clark became a sturdy, honest farmer and 
lost his life in a heroic and partially successful effort 
to save the lives of a party whose boat had been 
swamped in a storm. Many years later I met on 
Broadway a gentleman whose face wore a familiar 
look. "Come into my store," he said, and took me 
into a large establishment over which the sign bore 
his own name. "I know you," he said, "if you do 
not know me. I was one of your scholars on Hog 
Island." 

I received m} r thirty-six dollars in new and crisp 
bank-notes with great satisfaction. It was almost 
uhe first money I earned, and I loaned it to my uncle 
at ten per cent interest. The first money I ever earned 
was my salary as clerk of a militia company. It was 
paid in an order on the treasury of the State for five 
dollars, which I promptly exchanged for Leverett's 
"Latin Lexicon," which now, after hard usage by 
two generations, stands upon a shelf in m}- library. 
Nor was this all the profit of my Island experience. 
In the following October the committee of the school 
district at Swanton Falls, hearing of the satisfaction 
I had given on the Island, offered me the position of 
teacher for four months, with board at the hotel and 
the munificent compensation of fifty dollars per 
month. 

I accepted the offer, and I taught, or tried to teach, 
the school. At its close, in an exhibition to which 
the public was admitted, I received a vote of thanks 
and a beautifully engrossed certificate from the com- 



TEACHING SCHOOL ON HOG ISLAND. 277 

mittee attesting my success as a teacher and the satis- 
faction I had given to the district. 

The reader will be able to estimate the measure of 
my actual success when I inform him or her that the 
average attendance of scholars was above one hun- 
dred and that I was supposed to be the only teacher. 
I am happy to say that the introduction of graded 
schools and a better system has since made education 
more practical. I appointed under me a number of 
subordinate teachers, who taught themselves by teach- 
ing others, and I thus secured enough time to be of 
some service to the rest of the school. 

This winter's experience again was of great service 
to me, while it had no incidents of so striking a char- 
acter as that with the ruler on Hog Island. It taught 
me self-control and economy of time, and it was the 
source afterward of many pleasant and some very 
sad thoughts. I heard from time to time of my 
Swanton scholars. There were two affectionate, ex- 
cellent little white-headed boys. Their names were 
Elisha and Valentine Barney. The last time I saw 
them was when they received their prizes at my 
hands at the ages of about eight and ten years. When 
I next heard of them they were officers, bravely fight- 
ing for their country. One of them led his regiment 
of four hundred and forty-one men into the bloody 
Wilderness in the battle summer of 18G4. The regi- 
ment never retreated, and when it again advanced 
one hundred and ninety-six of their number re- 
mained dead or wounded on the field. Among those 
wounded to death was their brave, loyal colonel, my 
scholar. His brother was another soldier with an 
excellent record who survived the war. Two minis- 
ters, a lawyer, two physicians, and two wholesale 



278 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

merchants were also in my school. I remember two 
sons of a Canadian Frenchman, on account of their 
intelligence. I believe their father bore the noted 
name of Richelieu. He was very poor, but he must 
have had a good wife, for the boys were known by 
their cleanly appearance and courteous manners. 
Within two years I met the agent in charge of the 
old and justly celebrated line of steamers on Lake 
Champlain. I had heard him spoken of by many as 
a business man of known integrity who had been a 
popular captain of one of the steamboats he now con- 
trolled. "I have long wished to see j'ou," he said. 
" I was one of your scholars at Swanton Falls. My 
name is Rushlow. " It was my bright little Canadian 
boy grown to be a business man of great ability and 
respected by all who knew him. His brother is a 
successful farmer in the West. Those who think I 
was not glad to meet the captain, and did not feel 
that I had done something toward directing him into 
the paths of integrity and success, I am sure have 
never taught a district school. I have, and I am 
proud of it. I should have been a better man if I 
had had more experience as a teacher. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

The Book Chase — Non-Existence of Unique 
Copies — A Hunt for " Sanders' Indian 
Wars" and "The Contrast," the First 
American Play — Stolen Engravings and 
Drawings. 

The pleasures of the chase are almost coeval with 
the sinfulness of man. A great-grandson of Noah 
enjoyed them, for " he was a mighty hunter before 
the Lord." They are common to man without "ref- 
erence to race, color, or previous condition of servi- 
tude." They may vary with climate and race, but 
from Eskimo to Tasmanian all men at some period 
of their lives are hunters. The game varies with 
time, place, and opportunity, but all living and some 
fossil animals of the air, the forest, and the ocean 
have been objects of the chase. Some men seem to 
have experienced a keen delight in hunting their own 
race. In the border to the rare map in the " Novus 
Orbis" of Grynseus, of 1555, engraved by Holbein, 
there is a picture of a party of these man-hunters. 
One leads a horse with two youths, their limbs trussed 
together, and thrown across the horse's back, in the 
manner of the Highland gillie with his pony carry- 
ing the stags which have fallen before the rifle of the 
deer-stalker; another is hanging the human limbs 
which he has carved, upon the projections of his hut. 
From latest advices something of this kind may be 
still going on in the heart of the "dark continent." 

279 



280 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

But we may turn from all the savage, cruel, and 
offensive pictures of the chase to a species of its di- 
versions in which no butchered bird or animal is the 
quarry, but books and engravings are its nobler 
game. The chase of the well informed and equipped 
book-hunter has pleasures as keen, excitements as 
thrilling, moments as anxious, successes as gratify- 
ing, as any kind of sport, ever since Nimrod's time, 
practised or pursued by man. It is the object of 
the present article to sketch some of the requisites 
for success in this species of the chase and some of 
the dangerous pitfalls which constitute its chief ob- 
structions. Nothing more than a sketch is proposed, 
for the limits of this chapter preclude any attempt at 
an exhaustive treatment of the subject. 

The successful book-hunter, like the poet, must be 
born, he cannot be wholly made. He must have some 
natural qualifications which may be cultivated by 
education and matured by experience. He must 
leai-n to exercise and abide by his own judgment. If 
he does not he will be the subject of constant and cun- 
ning imposition. He must learn the haunts of his 
game, where it is not, as well as where it is to be 
found, for the earth is too broad to be hunted all over. 
He should not be discouraged by any number of fail- 
ures. He should not begin the hunt until he knows 
that its object exists, but once started he should fol- 
low it with the scent of the bloodhound and the per- 
sistence of the beagle, if necessar} T , through a score of 
years, to final capture. The longer and more trouble- 
some his pursuit, the more valuable will be his suc- 
cess when it is finally attaineed. 

There are a few things upon which the experienced 
book-hunter will never waste any time. One of 



THE BOOK CHASE. 281 

these is a unique copy of a book or a print. They 
have no existence. I do not say that such a thing 
is impossible, but I venture to assert that it is at the 
present time unknown. One or two copies of a book 
may have been printed upon vellum or on a peculiar 
paper, one or two impressions of a print may be 
taken from a plate which is then changed, but these 
are not unique in the book sense of the term. When 
the enthusiaistic maker of catalogues, after exhaust- 
ing the vocabulary of such superlatives as "most 
excessive rarity," "of unheard-of scarcity," speaks of 
a copy as unique, he means that the book was pub- 
lished regularly, and that by use, destruction, or other- 
wise all the copies except the one in question, of the 
particular dimensions and edition, have ceased to 
exist. In this sense, while I know of a score of books 
which have been sold as unique, I know of none ac- 
tually existing. I do not believe in unique copies, 
and I think the general experience of collectors jus- 
tifies my incredulity. 

" Made-up " copies are a continuing and increasing 
nuisance to the collector. The only satisfying object 
to his soul is the perfect book in its absolute integrity, 
untouched by the vandal knife of the binder, just as 
its signatures were assembled when they came from 
the press. A made-up copy, created by taking leaves 
from a half-dozen imperfect copies, with its defects 
mended by the pen or by the type of to-day, is a 
fraud. Such a thing of shreds and patches is like the 
patched garment which a gentleman, instead of wear- 
ing himself, would give to the first beggar. The im- 
position has reached enormous proportions and in- 
creases daily. It is but a few months since that I 
received from a German city a booksellers' catalogue 



282 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

which described as perfect the first edition of the 
" Heures " of Geoffrey Tory, a rare book, for which 
a full price was named. The booksellers were in- 
formed that if the book was all right I would huj it, 
but I would not purchase it without first collating it. 
They sent it to me. Its most interesting quality 
should have been a double or folded engraving called 
the " Angelic Salutation. " At the first turning over 
the leaves I found this print a modern counterfeit, 
and the volume made up of not less than four imper- 
fect copies. It was an impudent fraud, not admissible 
into a genuine collector's library, not worth a twen- 
tieth of the price demanded. 

Without further generalization let me say that the 
actual incidents of the chase for books and prints are 
always the most instructive. I will proceed to de- 
scribe some of my own experiences in this species of 
diversion. Many years ago I began to collect books 
relating to Vermont printed before 1850. In the 
early years of Vermont history a violent controversy 
existed with New York, which, as there was no news- 
paper in the State, was wholly carried on by pamph- 
lets. They were nearly a score in number written hj 
Ethan and Ira Allen and Stephen Roe Bradley. These 
had become excessively rare, and yet I never knew of 
one which I could not capture in a chase of a couple 
of years. My first real difficulty was in the hunt 
for a book printed in 1812 of the following title: 

A History op the Indian Wars, etc. 

{Written in Vermont) 

Montpelier, Vt. Published by Wright & Sibley, 1812. 

This title stood high up in my list of wants for 
many years. I knew that such a book had been writ- 



THE BOOK CHASE. 283 

ten and printed. Its author was the Rev. Daniel 
Sanders. It was a small duodecimo of about three 
hundred pages, in form closely resembling " Watts 
and Select " hymn book. There was a copy of it sold 
at the auction sale of the books of Mr. Fisher about 
18i;0, where it was described as -of "most excessive 
rarity," and brought an enormous price, some two 
hundred dollars. I had held this copy in my hands. 
There was no doubt whatever of its existence. But 
no second copy ever appeared in commerce. Why 
had a book published as late as 1812 become so rare 
that only one copy of it was known, which had already 
gained the reputation of a unique copy ? W hy shoul 1 
it be more scarce than even the Boston edition of 
"Hubbard's Indian Wars," with the genuine map, 
published in 1677, almost a century and a half earlier? 
Such a book must have a history which would give 
some account of its disappearance. I gave up the 
chase for the book and commenced a determined 
search for its history. 

The booksellers, who knew upon what subjects I 
was collecting, frequently sent me books relating to 
Vermont, on approval. In a package sent by one of 
them I found two octavo volumes called " The Lit- 
erary and Philosophical Repertory," published in 
numbers, issued at irregular intervals, the two vol- 
umes, of about five hundred pages each, covering the 
time from 1812 to 1818. It was 'edited by a num- 
ber of gentlemen " and printed at Middlebury, Ver- 
mont. There was no index, but upon a careful read- 
ing of its contents, at page 349 I found a review of 
" Sanders' Indian Wars " which put me upon the 
track of its history. 

It is a mistake to suppose that the monthly maga- 



284 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

zine originated in the present century, or in any 
American city. As early as 1795, one was published 
in Rutland, Vt., as large as Scribner's, without its 
advertisements, and perhaps of equal literary merit. 
" The Literary and Philosophical Repertory " was an- 
other, the origin of which will be found in Vermont 
history. In the early part of the present century 
Burlington and Middlebury each established a col- 
lege, which two institutions have ever since been 
maintained in a competition with which that between 
Harvard and Yale bears no comparison. Both col- 
leges were orthodox. Their professors were scholars, 
ministers of strong intellectual powers, but the first 
and indispensable qualification of a professor or tutor 
in either was that he should be a disciple and follower 
of John Calvin. A candidate might be deficient in 
his mathematics, his literature, his languages, and 
his athletics; such defects could be supplied. But 
unless his theology was unexceptionable he was re- 
jected. The other qualities related to the present 
state of man. His theology touched his future con- 
dition. If there was any flaw or defect in that, Satan 
would be sure to detect it and promptly take him 
into his camp. 

Now 1812 was just about the time that Unitarian- 
ism was experiencing a revival, and the Rev. Daniel 
Sanders was a captive to it. Perhaps it would be 
more appropriate to say that he had caught the in- 
fection and had a slight attack of the disease, some- 
thing like a man who takes the small-pox by inocu- 
lation. But it left some scars upon his mind, and 
these were more or less apparent in his literary pro- 
ductions. He had been appointed President of the 
Universit}' of Vermont at Burlington. How his Uni- 



SANDERS' INDIAN WAR. 285 

tarian tendencies came to be passed over, we do not 
know. Shortly after his appointment he had written 
"The History of Indian Wars." 

Mr. John Hough was a professor in Middlebury 
College. He was a Calvinist of the straightest sect. 
In his opinion a Unitarian — one who rejected the 
doctrine of the Trinity — was an awful man. He 
would have been a Good Samaritan to a criminal of 
any other kind, but he regarded a Unitarian as the 
enemy of the race — host is humani generis. 

Professor Hough wielded a very sharp pen. Car- 
lyle himself could not have compressed into a literary 
criticism any more caustic contempt. Judged from 
his writings he must have had an analytical intellect 
and extraordinary felicity of expression. When, 
therefore, some enemy of the Rev. Daniel Sanders 
put it into his heart to write a " History of Indian 
Wars," print it, and send only four or five copies to 
his friends before the book was ready for sale, one of 
these copies, by accident, fell into the hands of Pro- 
fessor Hough; and the Rev. Daniel was undone. 
The Lord had delivered that Unitarian into orthodox 
hands. Professor Hough wrote a criticism of the 
book and published it in the number of " The Liter- 
ary and Philosophical Repertory" for November, 1813. 
It occupies twenty-five octavo pages. He not only 
criticised the book, but he extinguished the literary 
aspirations of its author. It was indeed a cruel piece 
of work. He flayed the author alive, he bound him 
to the stake and burned him with a slow fire, he tor- 
tured him to his literary death. He gave him ele- 
mentary instruction in grammar, rules for English 
composition. He showed that his facts were not 
true, that there was nothing new in the book except 



286 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

that which was false, as every one but the author 
knew. But the brilliancy of the criticism appears 
when the critic reaches the author's theology. He 
revelled in this part of his work ; he speared the Rev. 
Daniel with his pen, and held him up to exhibition 
like an insect transfixed with a pin. He shot more 
arrows into him than St. Sebastian bears in his body. 
The criticism concluded in this language of excoria- 
tion : " This work then is adapted to create in the 
minds of the young, the uninformed, and the unwary, 
for on others it can have no influence, the most mis- 
chievous and unfounded associations. It is plainly 
suited to lead them to associate hypocrisy and cor- 
ruption with the appearance of piety, and the most 
dire malignity with zeal for divine truth. The 
author richly merits the severest detestation of every 
individual who values public virtue, who reveres the 
religion of Christ and who prizes the eternal happi- 
ness of his fellow-man. That parent is lost to his 
duty, and regardless of those whom God has com- 
mitted to his charge, who allows this history to be 
within reach of his children, to corrupt their princi- 
ples, poison their minds, and lay the foundation of 
irreligion and guilt, of their misery and perdition." 

Professor Hough decapitated the author, broke 
him on the wheel, crucified him head downward, pul- 
verized him and scattered his dust to the winds. I 
know of no other piece of criticism in the language 
more fierce and effective. It is not to be wondered 
at that the author gave up without a struggle. He 
used every possible exertion to suppress the book, and 
honestly believed that he had committed every copy 
of it to the flames, including the four or five sent to 
his friends. 



SANDERS' INDIAN WARS. 287 

After this book had been on my list of wants for 
more than twenty years, in the year 1874 I was in 
attendance upon the Circuit Court of the United 
States, at Windsor, Vt. Windsor was the residence 
of Alden Spooner, the brother and successor of Judah 
Paddock Spooner, the first Vermont printer. While 
waiting for my case, I strolled into a book-store kept 
by an elderly gentleman named Merrifield. In an- 
swer to my inquiries about Alden Spooner, he in- 
formed me that Spooner was his ancestor, and that 
he now occupied the house in which Spooner formerly 
resided. He gave me leave to explore the garret of 
his house. It was neat and orderly, but literally filled 
with the clothing, furniture, and implements of past 
generations. At the very bottom of one of the nu- 
merous barrels which it contained I found a copy of 
a "Treatise on Prayer" by Nathaniel Niles, the 
author of the famous Sapphic ode, beginning, 

" Why should vain mortals tremble at the sight of 
Death and destruction in the field of battle ?" 

and also, mirabile visu, a perfect copy of " Sanders' 
Indian Wars." It was just as it came from the 
press, except that unfortunately it was not "uncut." 
I honestly told the old bookseller the story of the book, 
paid him a liberal price for it, and became its owner. 
But rare books are like sorrows, they come " not 
single spies, but in battalions." The story of my 
" find " got into the newspapers. Very soon I began 
to receive letters announcing the existence of other 
copies. One turned up in the Vermont State Library ; 
two others in as many different towns in Vermont ; 
so that, although the author supposed every copy of 
the book was not only suppressed but actually de- 



288 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

stroyed, not less than six copies are now known to 
exist. I do not know that I ought to feel gratified, 
but I believe all these copies except my own and one 
other are imperfect. I must add that the finding of 
these copies has lowered the value of the first or Fisher 
copy, which had sold for over two hundred dollars. 
It has since been sold at auction for about one hun- 
dred dollars. And yet, if a perfect copy of " San- 
ders' Indian Wars" were now offered for sale at 
public auction, there are collectors by the score who 
would pay for it possibly the price of the Fisher copy 
and make a profitable investment by their purchase. 

A Long Hunt for "The Contrast." 

In the early days of my chase after books " relat- 
ing to Vermont," I encountered many disappoint- 
ments. Omitting the pursuit of the numerous pam- 
phlets touching the controversy between New York 
and Vermont, relating to the New Hampshire grants, 
which are now worth more than their weight in sil- 
ver, as shown by the prices paid for them at the 
Brinley sale, I will come at once to a legend which 
has ripened into a fact, in the history of the Ameri- 
can theatre. The legend was that the first play 
written by an American author ever represented upon 
the American stage was written by a Vermonter, 
named Royal Tyler. He was known to have been a 
lawyer, a justice of the Vermont Supreme Court, a 
celebrated wit, a well-known contributor to the 
"Farmers' Museum," published at Walpole, N. H., 
by Isaiah Thomas. Tyler had made an accidental 
visit to New York City, where he had formed the 
acquaintance of Thomas Wignell, a leading come- 
dian, who wished to introduce to the stage the char- 



A HUNT FOR A PLAY. 289 

acterof Brother Jonathan. Judge Tyler had accord- 
ingly written the comedy of " The Contrast," in which 
Brother Jonathan was a principal character. It had 
been performed with great eclat in New York, Phila- 
delphia, Baltimore, and Washington, to crowded 
houses. It was a part of the legend that the play, 
under the name of " The Contrast, " had been printed 
and published in New York City about the year 1790. 

A play "with such a history, written by a Ver- 
monter, would be a veritable nugget in the literature 
of the Green Mountain State. The title stood at the 
head of my list of " wants " for almost twice fifteen 
years. But the chase for it was never hopeful. No 
copy of it was ever discovered, nor any evidence, ex- 
cept the legend, that it had been printed. If it had 
ever been published, it must have been in a pamphlet 
form. Pamphlets are invariably short-lived. The 
respect which insures preservation cannot be secured 
without covers. Put covers upon any pamphlet and 
it becomes a book, to be protected against the waste- 
basket and the rag-bag ; it secures the respect of the 
housewife and the servant, those peripatetic and most 
dangerous enemies of the treasures of the book-col- 
lector. 

In the chase for "The Contrast," I had empkwed 
all the recognized means of getting upon the track of 
a rare book. I had patiently examined all the auc- 
tion and sale catalogues for years. I had standing 
orders for " The Contrast " with all the booksellers. 
I had handled many, possibly hundreds of cords of 
the trash in Go wan' s and other second-hand dealers, 
and the result had been nil. Not only had no copy 
of the play been discovered, but I had not found a 
particle of evidence that it had ever been printed. 
19 



290 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

The play could scarcely be a century old. If printed, 
its date could not have been earlier than 1790. Surely 
a book of a date so recent could not have wholly ceased 
to exist. I was finally forced to the conclusion that 
the legend was erroneous ; that " The Contrast" had 
never been printed. 

This decision of mine was published in some 
newspaper and came to the knowledge of a lineal de- 
scendant of Judge Tyler, a reputable citizen of Bos- 
ton. To convince me of my error, he sent me one 
printed leaf of the play, comprising pages 45 and 46. 
At the top of each page was the title, " The Contrast." 
In the dialogue were the characters " Brother Jona- 
than "and "Jenny," and the former sang the song 
"Yankee Doodle." These pages settled the fact that 
the play had been printed. The printing was proved ; 
the disappearance of the last printed copy I was com- 
pelled to regard as impossible to be accounted for by 
the rules which commonly determine the life of a 
book. 

The wheels of time rolled on to the year 1876. I 
had given up all hope of " The Contrast ;" the mystery 
continued unexplained and grew darker with age. 
One day I received a catalogue entitled " Washing- 
toniana, Books, rare plans and maps, a part of the 
library of General George Washington. Many of 
the books contain his autograph. To be sold in 
Philadelphia, on Tuesday afternoon, November 26th, 
1876, by Thomas & Sons, auctioneers." 

No. 35 of this catalogue contained this title, " The 
Contrast — A Comedy in Five Acts. Frontispiece, 
8vo, morocco, Phila. 1790. Has autograph." 

Was this the Contrast which I had hunted so long, 
or some other? It was printed in Philadelphia, the 



A HUNT FOR A PLAY. 291 

genuine was supposed to have been printed in New 
York. Yet the date 1790 was about correct. But 
why was it in the library of General George Wash- 
ington? This was a very suspicious circumstance, 
after the forgery of his motto, exitus acta probat, 
and his book-plate, which had imposed upon so many 
collectors. But it was unsafe to attract attention to 
the title by correspondence. Slight as the chance 
was, I determined not to lose it. I employed a well- 
known bookseller and bibliopole of New York City 
to attend the sale, and, if this was the genuine Con- 
trast, to buy it without limit of price. I was very 
confident that, after so long a chase, the genuine 
comedy was worth as much to me as to any other 
collector. I also gave him moderate bids upon Num- 
bers 101 and 104, the folio volumes of maps, paged 
by the hand of General Washington, and as the cata- 
logue stated, supposed to be the maps used by him 
during the Revolutionary War. These bids were 
given without any further investigation. 

My order proved a success. It secured the genuine 
" Contrast, " which was purchased for a few dollars, 
and my agent returned with it in his possession. Its 
inspection showed that it formed no exception to the 
rule that every published book appears in commerce 
once in fifteen years ; for this play had never been 
published. It was printed for a list of subscribers, 
which appeared with the comedy. " The President 
of the United States," was the first subscriber. This 
copy had been bound in red and green morocco, 
tooled and ornamented in the highest style of the 
bibliopegistic art of the time, for General Washing- 
ton, who then filled the exalted position of chief mag- 
istrate of the republic. The title-page was adorned 



292 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

by his well-known autograph. The volume now lies 
before me, perfect in every particular, with a fron- 
tispiece engraved by Maverick, one of our earliest 
engravers on metal, from a painting by Dunlap, con- 
taining the portraits ad vivum of Wignell as Brother 
Jonathan, Mrs. Morris as Charlotte, and three of the 
other principal characters in the play as represented. 
It would be difficult to imagine a volume possessing 
more elements of attraction to a collector than the 
first play written by an American, which created the 
stage character of Brother Jonathan, was once owned 
by the Father of his Country, who had written his 
own name upon the title, and which was withal of 
such excessiye rarity. 

One would suppose that a volume which had so 
long evaded the most exhaustive and comprehensive 
search would be properly called unique. And yet 
it was not. Collectors know that it is a rule to which 
exceptions seldom occur, that the discovery of one 
very rare volume is followed by the discovery of its 
duplicate. I was not therefore much surprised when, 
a few weeks after this volume came into nry hands, 
I was informed by that careful and intelligent col- 
lector of portraits of actors and other material con- 
nected with the stage, Mr. Thomas J. McKee, that 
he, too, had just secured a copy of "The Contrast," 
at the end of a search which for length and thorough- 
ness almost rivalled my own. He had secured it by 
the merest accident. A catalogue sent to him from 
some small English city, Bristol, I believe, contained 
its title priced at a few shillings. He ordered it, and 
in due course of mail received a copy of this rare and 
long-hunted play. From his copy " The Contrast " 
has recently been reprinted. That copy and the one 



A HUNT FOR A PLAY. 293 

above described are the only copies so far known of 
the original edition. 

The first one hundred and thirty-eight numbers in 
the catalogue of the Philadelphia sale were books 
which unquestionably once formed a portion of the 
library of General Washington. Many of them con- 
tained notes in the careful chirography of their illus- 
trious owner, in addition to his autograph. They 
had passed to a relative under the provisions of his 
will, whose descendant, the last owner of the collec- 
tion, had been impoverished by the war, and com- 
pelled by his necessities to .sell them. The larger 
folio of maps bears evidence of the regular, methodi- 
cal, business habits of its former owner. It comprises 
over one hundred maps of North America and the 
West India Islands, with detailed plans of the de- 
fences of the principal cities. There are also many 
plans of battles, sieges, etc., four of Braddock's de- 
feat, for example. Each of these was issued sepa- 
rately. To arrange them in their proper order for 
binding, was a work which required historical and 
geographical knowledge. It had been most carefuHy 
done by General Washington himself. He had paged 
every map in figures a half-inch in length so care- 
fully outlined and then filled in with ink, that every 
figure appeared to have been engraved. Some of 
these maps are of great historical interest. No. 22, 
for instance, a map of the Province of New Hamp- 
shire, published as early as 1762, would have been 
very powerful, perhaps conclusive evidence, that ^n 
the controversy with New York concerning the New 
Hampshire grants, the right of the case was with 
the province last named. It extends the western boun- 
dary line of New Hampshire to Lake Champlain, in- 



294 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

stead of restricting it to the west bank of Connecticut 
River, as claimed by New York. According to this 
map, the governor of New Hampshire had the ex- 
clusive right to make grants of land within what are 
now the limits of Vermont, and New York had no 
jurisdiction over it. The crown officers would have 
been bound by it, since it was prepared for the use 
of the war department and dedicated to Charles 
Townsend, at that time the British secretary of 
war. 

My agent represented to me that a gentleman who 
was then collecting " Washingtoniana " very much 
desired to possess the smaller collection of maps, cata- 
logued as No. 104, and as I had secured the three 
" nuggets " of the sale, pressed me to permit this pur- 
chase to be transferred to his customer. To this I 
consented. The two folios were delivered to the 
agent, who sent the smaller to the collector. Not long 
afterward, the agent advertised for sale one of the 
most interesting memorials of Washington which 
existed. It was a detailed plan of the Mount Ver- 
non estate, showing its division into large lots, the 
portions under cultivation, the forests, the residence 
and grounds, its location on the river, its gardens 
and orchards, meadows, pastures, fields, etc. The 
dimensions of each field and its area were given, and 
each of its qualities was described. The survey was 
made and the plan drawn b} T Washington, who was 
a practical surveyor, and the descriptions were writ- 
ten by his own hand. The price demanded was two 
hundred and fifty dollars, which was readily obtained. 
I was assured by the agent that this plan was found 
in the smaller folio which I had given up to his cus- 
tomer. But it was a little remarkable that its folds 



WASHINGTONIANA. 295 

should have exactly corresponded with the dimensions 
of the larger folio which I have described, and not at 
all with the smaller which I had surrendered. This 
fact was one of those little things which have no ex- 
planation. I mention it to show that the experiences 
of the book chase are not all pleasures, but like the 
pursuit of larger game they are tempered by annoy- 
ances and disappointments. 

Turning now from the unavailing search for " uni- 
quities " which do not exist to iniquities which do, 
the conclusion of my experience as a collector is, never 
to purchase a rare book or print from a stranger. 
The collector will profit in the end who makes all his 
purchases through one of the reputable, established 
houses in the trade. These houses have an interest 
in dealing honorably with collectors and in protect- 
ing them from frauds and annoyances. 

If a rare book or engraving is offered by a stranger 
it is safe to assume that there is some iniquity con- 
nected with it. Theft is the most common. Al- 
though no one can say why, it is still the fact that 
many frequenters of libraries and book -stores will 
carry away a rare volume or picture who would be 
horrified at the thought that they were thieves. It 
is not many years ago, when the fever for " Wash- 
ingtoniana " was at its height, that the autograph let- 
ter written by General Washington to the Common 
Council of New York City, acknowledging the re- 
ceipt of " the freedom of the city, in a gold box, " ap- 
peared in the catalogue of an auction sale of books 
and autographs. This letter was a public document 
of the city. It could no more be sold or given away 
by authority than a volume of the public records. 
Yet it produced a fierce competition at the sale 



296 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

among a number of collectors, to one of whom it 
was struck off for twenty-five hundred dollars. The 
buyer'bought the experience he deserved. He was 
sued in replevin by the city and compelled to sur- 
render the letter. I believe he afterward recovered 
his money from the executor of the seller. He de- 
served to lose it, for it must have been as well known 
to every one connected with the sale that this letter 
was stolen propert}', as if it had been inscribed 
"stolen from the city." 

In the following instance I volunteered to act in 
the interest of the owner. I shall not be much sur- 
prised if the publication of this article enables him 
to recover his property. 

Some years ago a fresco painter of foreign birth 
was sent by his employer to do some work on the ceil- 
ing of my library. There were a few early etchings 
by Durer and Marc Antonio on the walls, with which 
the painter appeared to be singularh* familiar. After 
mentioning some marks, not generally known, by 
which experienced collectors identify a print with 
the different stages of the plate, he observed that he 
had a portfolio of early etchings and original draw- 
ings which might interest me. Upon inquiring what 
they were, he made the apparently extravagant reply 
that the portfolio comprised original drawings by 
Martin Schoen, Durer, Cranach, Burgmaier, Marc 
Antonio, Raphael, Michael Angelo, Mantegna, and 
others of the early German and Italian schools, with 
early etchings of many of them. In answer to strong 
expressions of my incredulity, he said with some 
spirit that he knew an original from a cop3 T ; that the 
portfolio was at his home, a certain number in 
Bleecker Street, where, if I would call, his wife would 



A STORY OF EARLY DRAWINGS. 297 

show me the drawings and prints and I could satisfy 
myself of their authenticity. 

I passed the place daily and could make the ex- 
amination without inconvenience, or I should not 
have regarded the prospect of results as worth the 
trouble. I had not the slightest expectation of see- 
ing one original he had named. I made the appoint- 
ment and kept it. I found on the first floor a very 
small shop kept by the painter's wife, in which there 
was a stock of toys, cheap stationery, and newspapers, 
the whole value of which could not have amounted 
to two hundred dollars. They lived over the shop in 
two rooms cheaply furnished. I was taken to one of 
these bj r the painter, who unlocked a long, wide, but 
thin wooden box, and took from it a thick portfolio 
large enough for Marc Antonio's Massacre of the In- 
nocents. Opening this he took from it and laid on 
the table and floor before my astonished eyes a most 
surprising collection. 

It consisted of etchings, engravings, and drawings 
in pencil, ink, and sepia, by all the masters he had 
named and some others. They possessed every in- 
dication of genuineness. Some of the drawings were 
sketches for a larger work, others were half completed. 

Two sketches I recognized as portions of M. An- 
gelo's famous fresco of " Roman Soldiers Attacked 
while Bathing, " conceded by Da Vinci to have been 
superior to his " Fight for the Standards*. " There 
were several by Raphael, some unmistakable An- 
drea Mantegna's, there were Durers, Cranachs, and 
Van Ley dens. Of etchings there was a superb im- 
pression of Marc Antonio's " Massacre" with the fir 
tree ; a fine copy of " The Crucifixion, " the master- 
piece of Lucas van Leyden ; specimens of the " little 



298 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

masters " by the score. Without farther enumeration 
I may say generally that I thought then, and still 
believe, that the contents of that portfolio would have 
netted more than two thousand dollars at auction. 

"Where did you get this collection?" I asked. 

He answered without hesitation or confusion, that 
his father and grandfather had been fresco-painters 
like himself in Germany ; that love of the arts was 
hereditary in his family; that his ancestors had been 
employed to repair many of the old monasteries on 
the walls of which many of these drawings and prints 
had been pasted ; that the monks did not care for them 
and had given them to his father and grandfather, 
who had removed them with great care. He showed 
indications on some of the drawings that the}' had 
been so detached. In this way during three gener- 
ations the collection had been made. 

" But, " I said, " here is a drawing by Rosa Bonheur, 
here are others by living English artists, which could 
have scarcely found their way on to the wall of ancient 
monasteries !" 

These he said he had obtained by exchange with a 
collector in Belgium whose name he gave. He bore 
a sharp cross-examination well ; he was prepared with 
a ready answer for every question. His familiarity 
with the history of engravers and of valuable prints 
rendered his answers appropriate. He pointed out 
several marks of identification of Durer's and Martin 
Schoen's which were new to me, and which I have 
not met with in any book ; he knew more about some 
of the prints than I did, and I claim to be able to 
identify a genuine Durer by a very brief inspection. 

At the close of the examination I selected four 
pieces : A head of Wohlgemuth in pencil with Du- 



A STORY OF EARLY DRAWINGS. 299 

rer's monogram and the date 1489, on the back of 
which was written in German the words " Portrait 
of M. Wohlgemuth, my art teacher. A. Duerer." 
This date I remembered was during the three years 
of Durer's apprenticeship to Wohlgemuth ; the paper 
was hand-made, old, and bore the watermark of the 
elephant's head. The second was a pen drawing, half 
length, of Charles the Fifth by Cranach. It had no 
inscription, but there was no more mistaking the pro- 
jecting chin and heavy jaws of the German ruler 
than the double shields and flying dragon of the ar- 
tist. The easy grace of the lines of this drawing was 
marvellous, surpassing anything in Durer's illustra- 
tions of the Prayer-Book. The third was the head of 
a monk in crayon, marked " H. B., 1520." I was 
in some doubt about this, but it strongly resembled 
the work of Burgmaier. The fourth was a drawing 
of two young cattle in India ink, one animal standing, 
the other lying down. It bore no mark or monogram, 
but the lovely expression of the face and eyes of the 
female, and the splendid vigor of the male, unmis- 
takably declared it to be the inimitable work of Rosa 
Bonheur. I had not the slightest doubt of the genu- 
ineness of either, except the one by Burgmaier. When 
I asked him how much money he wanted for the four 
pieces he turned toward me a face if not " like Ni- 
obe, all tears," it was at least equal to hers, in the 
grief of its expression. "Sell them!" What could 
have led me to imagine that he would sell them? 
They were an inheritance from a loved father, the 
light of his eyes, the joy of his life. Such priceless 
treasures were not for money. He would as soon 
sell his wife. 

I restored the drawings to the portfolio and took 



300 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

my leave, reflecting that here was a novel and extra- 
ordinary experience in the chase for prints. A jour- 
neyman painter, working for day wages, living in 
poverty over a small mean shop, with a collection of 
prints and drawings in his possession which could 
not be rivalled on the continent, which were worth 
thousands of dollars, and yet who would not part with 
one of them for money. Was this the expression of 
artistic love, or was it fear? My diagnosis was that 
this collection was associated with something undis- 
closed, probably with a crime. 

For more than a year I heard nothing of this 
unique proprietor of artistic treasures. One evening 
toward the close of the year, a certain 24th of Decem- 
ber, my door-bell was rung and I was informed that 
a man wished to see me who declined to give his 
name and for that reason was left standing in the 
hall. The gas was not yet lighted and in the gloom 
of approaching darkness I did not recognize him, but 
when he spoke I knew it was the fresco painter. He 
said he had brought something to show me. I in- 
vited him into a lighted room, where he laid a port- 
folio on the table, opened, took from it and spread out 
the four drawings I had selected, in the same condi- 
tion as when I last saw them. He positively repre- 
sented "the knight of the rueful countenance," as 
he told me of his errand. He had been working and 
saving for years, that he might at the coming Christ- 
mas make his wife a present of a savings-bank book 
with a certain sum to her credit. He could not quite 
make up the sum upon which he had set his heart. 
What should he do? Fail of his present or part with 
some of his heart treasures? Here was a divided 
duty, but rather than disappoint a faithful and hard- 



DEALING WITH A FRAUD. 301 

working wife he had decided to part with these 
drawings to one who would appreciate and preserve 
them. He had therefore brought them to me; he 
could not bargain about them. I could have them at 
my own price. 

I mentally summed up the situation and the fel- 
low's character thus: He was a first-class fraud; his 
whole story was false. He was selling stolen prop- 
erty, probably rifled from some foreign collection. 
Should I call a servant and order him kicked into 
the street; or should I offer him a small sum which 
the owner would willingly pay to redeem his prop- 
erty if he ever appeared? 

I decided upon the latter course. I offered a sum 
so insignificant that I will not name it. He remon- 
strated like "Oliver asking for more," but I was 
flinty-hearted, although the sorrow of his parting from 
his treasures was almost enough to excite my com- 
passion. But he took his money, left his drawings, 
and tore himself away. 

Then the purchaser of the stolen goods had a short 
season of self-communion. Was he quite sure that 
he had not himself been sold? It would not be in- 
teresting to discover that the drawings themselves 
were frauds. He gave them a searching investiga- 
tion, and, while every indication favored their genu- 
ineness, he placed them in a drawer, never to be 
shown until some unchallenged authority had at- 
tested their authenticity. 

Before the new year, the police reports one morning 
disclosed a true case of desertion and destitution. A 
fellow whose wife had supported both, by keeping a 
small shop, while she lay sick in bed had sold out the 
shop, taken every cent of money from the clothing 



302 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

of his sick wife while she was sleeping, abandoned 
her in utter poverty, and absconded with a woman 
of no doubtful character, leaving his own creditors 
in the lurch. The wife had no relatives, for they 
were foreigners. She was starving. They lived at 
No. — Bleecker Street, and the name of the rascal 

was that of my fresco painter. 

The wife was assisted by a small sum which the 
owner will have to pay if he redeems his property, 
and on my next visit to Paris the drawings were ex- 
bited to the experts in old drawings at the Louvre, 
who pronounced them all genuine. Rosa Bonheur 
solved all doubts of the drawing attributed to her by 
writing her artist autograph on its margin. The 
drawings were then framed and have ever since 
awaited the coming of their owners. As the leap 
of the boy from the sixth-story window uninjured 
was proved because the window " was still there !" 
so it may be said to any who question the foregoing 
account, " It is certainly true, for the drawings are 
there to prove it." 



CHAPTER XXX. 

Some Men Whom I Knew in Washington 
During the Civil War. 

JAMES S. WADSWORTH. 

In an old note-book of 18G4 I recently found this 
dispatch from Acquia Creek in May, 1864, the day of 
the month omitted : 

" Wadsworth fell yesterday. He is in the hands of 
the enemy, either dead or mortally wounded." 

I remember now the sharp pang of sorrow that 
went through my heart when this dispatch was laid 
on my table ; for James S. Wadsworth was a lova- 
ble man, my model of the very best type of the citi- 
zen of a free republic. I first knew him in the Peace 
Conference. He was then in the prime of life, with 
a magnificent physique, an open, frank face, a 
kind heart, and a fearless soul. After our call upon 
President Buchanan, he regarded our mission in the 
Conference as ended. He said to James A. Seddon, 
of Virginia : " Why do you persist in your attempt 
to deceive the North ? You secessionists mean figh t ! 
You will keep right on with your treasonable schemes 
until you either whip us or we discipline you. I shall 
stay here until Congress adjourns on the 3d of March, 
because I cannot honorably resign from the Confer- 
ence. Then I shall go home and help my people to 
get ready for the war in which you slaveholders in- 
tend to involve the republic !" 

303 



304 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

After the Conference I heard no more of Wads- 
worth until, among the first of the seventy-five thou- 
sand, he appeared in Washington with a full regi- 
ment of his neighbors from the Genesee Valley. 
They came so promptly, it was said, because they 
were armed and clothed by Wadsworth himself. I 
met him frequently afterward, always busy in caring 
for his regiment. He was appointed military gov- 
ernor of the District. One day in November he called 
at the Register's office on business. He wore the 
common soldier's blue overcoat and cap; his heavy 
boots, worn outside of his trousers, had a rich cover- 
ing of red Virginia mud, and no one would have sus- 
pected that he was the owner of half a county of the 
fertile lands of the Genesee Valley. He invited me 
to dine with him. He said the carriage road to the 
governor's residence was slightly out of repair, and 
he would send saddle-horses for myself and a few other 
guests. I accepted the invitation. 

On the day appointed the horses came with two 
orderlies. They were splendid animals or they could 
not have carried us through that bottomless mud from 
the end of the Long Bridge to our destination. The 
governor's residence was just such a tent as ten thou- 
sand soldiers in the same camp were provided with, 
only it was of a larger size. Our dinner had just the 
same material and number of courses as the dinner 
of these soldiers. Even the moderate quantity of ex- 
cellent " old Jamaica " on our table was furnished to 
any soldier who really needed it. I have eaten many 
dinners and been made very miserable by some of 
them, but the experiences and memories of that 
one were and still are delightful. It was not dif- 
ficult to understand why Wadsworth (he was then 



JAMES S. WADSWORTH. 305 

a brigadier) was living among and upon the same 
fare as his soldiers. No Scotch retainers better 
loved their chieftain than these men loved their gen- 
eral, and they proved their affection afterward in the 
bloody Wilderness. 

It was after dark in that November night when 
we returned to Washington. Our host persisted in 
escorting us home, where we arrived without acci- 
dent. A civil officer of high rank, a member of our 
party, insisted that we should call at his residence. 
We did so, and there we drank a loving-cup with 
the man we called the " Prince of Genesee." 

I saw him only once more. I will not describe the 
interview, for I do not wish to revive unpleasant mem- 
ories. It was in my own private office, when he was 
furious with indignation because he believed ten thou- 
sand loyal men and true had been sacrificed to inordi- 
nate vanity and professional jealousy, an opinion 
then generally entertained, which some afterward 
changed, but which I shall carry to my grave. 

I loved James S. Wads worth. Here is what I 
wrote of him when he fell in May, 1804: "In the 
Peace Conference or in the world there was never a 
purer or a more unselfish patriot. Those of us who 
were associated with him politically had learned to 
love and respect him. His adversaries admired his 
unflinching devotion to his country and his manly 
frankness and candor. He was the type of a true 
American, able, unselfish, prudent, unambitious, and 
good. Other pens will do justice to his memory, but 
I thought as I heard the last account of him alive, 
as he lay within the rebel lines, his face wearing that 
serenity which grew more beautiful the nearer death 
approached, that the good and, true men of the na- 
20 



306 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

tion would prize their government more highry when 
they remembered that it could only be maintained by 
such sacrifices." 

MAJOR DANIEL McCOOK. 

" Come and take a walk with me, " said Secretary 
Chase, one Ma}' afternoon, after our dinner at the 
Rugby House, where we both then lived. "The 
First Regiment of Ohio Volunteers is in camp 
on Fourteenth Street, and I am going out to see 
them." I accepted his invitation. We reached the 
camp just as the evening parade was going on. 
When it was over their colonel made a short military 
speech to the regiment, in which he told them very 
plainly the purpose for which they had entered the 
service of their country and what they must do to 
qualify themselves for that service. The speech 
made a profound impression on my mind, for it was 
my first instruction in the art and purpose of war 
from the standpoint of the soldier. 

Governor Chase was then invited to say a few 
words to the regiment. He declined to destroy the 
influence of the excellent speech of the colonel by any 
observations, but said that after the regiment was 
dismissed he would like to take every man by the 
hand, and he did so. We were then introduced to 
the officers. The officer in command was Colonel 
now Major-General, Alexander McDoivell McCook. 

A few days afterward, in his own office, Secretary 
Chase introduced me to a citizen of Ohio whose 
name he said was Major Daniel McCook, the father 
of the colonel of the First Ohio Regiment. The 
Secretary was not in a good frame of mind that morn- 
ing. In fact, it was the only time I remember ever 



MAJOR DANIEL McCOOK. 307 

to have seen him when his temper appeared to have 
escaped the control of his judgment. He had just 
been describing how some Ohio regiments under 
the command of General Schenck, on a reconnoi- 
tring expedition to Vienna, Va., had been fired upon 
by the rebels from a m asked battery, five men killed, 
and a number wounded and missing. The Secretary 
held in his hand a six-pound shot. His tall frame 
shook with indignation as he exclaimed, " There ! 
there is a cannon-ball actually fired from a rebel can- 
non upon an Ohio regiment bearing the flag of their 
country !" We soon became so much accustomed to 
battles that a skirmish like that at Vienna did not 
attract much attention, and I did not hear the term 
" masked battery" again used during the war. 

I invited Major McCook to my office, and he often 
called there afterward. He was a tall, erect, fine- 
looking man, who said he " had some boys who were 
going into the service, at all events such of them as 
were old enough . " He was sixty-three years old — too 
old to get into the service in the regular way, but as 
he was in good health and felt as young as ever, he 
had come on to Washington to " see what Uncle Abe 
and the governor [Chase] could do for him." He 
said that he " could work in the commissary or the 
quartermaster's departments or in the hospitals. Any- 
way, he could not stay at home when the country 
wanted men. He wanted to do something for the 
country." 

Daniel McCook did do something for the country. 
In the retreat from the first Bull Run he was taking 
care of the wounded as a volunteer nurse. Charles 
Morris, his youngest son save one, a boy of eighteen, 
a private in the First Ohio, was with his regiment 



308 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

covering the retreat of the army. Passing a field 
hospital, he stopped to assist his father with the 
wounded while his regiment marched on. He was 
surrounded by rebel cavalry. He disabled the officer 
in command and with his musket and bayonet kept 
the others at bay. In answer to his father's call to 
surrender to such inevitable odds, he replied that he 
would never surrender to a rebel! They shot him 
dead before his father's eyes. 

Lett i mer A., the eldest son of Major Daniel Mc- 
Cook, served as a surgeon with John A. Logan's regi- 
ment. He was in the Western army, was wounded 
before Vicksburg, marched to the sea, was again 
wounded at Pocotaligo Bridge, and died a few years 
after the war of his wounds and exposure. 

George W., the second son, served and lost his 
health in the war with Mexico. He studied law 
with Edwin M. Stanton, was attorney-general of 
Ohio, a brigadier-general in the War of the Rebellion, 
an efficient organizer of Ohio troops, but on account 
of infirm health was unable to take the field. 

John J. McCook, at the age of nineteen, in 1842 
died a midshipman in the naval service of his 
country, of a fever, off the coast of South America. 

Robert L. McCook, the fourth son, by brilliant 
service rose to the command of a division as major- 
general in 18G2. He was foulhy murdered by gueril- 
las near Salem, in Alabama, while following his di- 
vision in an ambulance, in which he lay prostrated 
by dysenterj r and a severe wound. 

Alexander McDowell McCook served with dis- 
tinction throughout the war, in which he rose to the 
rank of major-general. He is now a major-general 
in the regular army. 



MAJOR DANIEL McCOOK. 309 

Daniel McCook, Junior, the sixth son, was colonel 
of the Fifty-second Ohio ; commander of a brigade in 
Sheridan's division; led the assault on Kenesaw 
Mountain, where he was mortally wounded. He 
was promoted to the rank of general of brigade for 
gallant service, and died in July, 18G4, at the age of 
thirty years. 

Edwin S. McCook, the seventh son, educated at 
Annapolis; captain in Logan's Thirty-first Illinois; 
with Logan through the Chattanooga and Atlanta 
campaigns, and to the sea ; three times wounded ; a 
brigadier and brevet major-general; survived the 
war; was acting governor of Dakota, where, while 
presiding at a public meeting, he was slain by an 
assassin. 

As already stated, Charles Morris, the eighth son, 
was killed at Bull Run. John J. McCook, the ninth 
son, when the bolt of treason fell was sixteen years 
old. He enlisted in the Sixth Ohio cavalry; first 
lieutenant on the staff of General Crittenden in Sep- 
tember, 1862; served through the campaigns in the 
West and with Grant in the last Potomac campaign ; 
captain in 1863; was promoted to lieutenant -colonel 
for gallant service. He is now a lawyer in New 
York City, where in the autumn of 1892 he led the 
charge of the Presbyterians against Professor Briggs 
and the New York Seminary. John J. and Alex- 
ander are the only survivors of the family. 

Major Daniel McCook, the father of this extra- 
ordinary family, was mortally wounded in a fight' 
with the rebel General John Morgan, on his raid 
into Ohio, in July, 1863. His wife, the mother of 
these boys, was Martha Latimer, daughter of Abra- 
ham Latimer, of Washington, Pa. 



310 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

GUSTAVUS VASA FOX. 

Captain G. V. Fox had a good head and a mathe- 
matical brain, which he put to excellent practical uses, 
on a short, compact figure. He had been an officer in 
the navy and captain of a Pacific Mail steamer, and 
in 1861 was the business manager of a large factory 
in New England. He was connected by marriage 
with Secretary Montgomeiy Blair, and first attracted 
the notice of the President by his common-sense views 
on the subject of the reinforcement of Fort Sumter, 
which were contrary to those of the Navy Department. 
It was too late to make the trial. But the President 
made him an Assistant Secretary of the Navy, where 
his influence was excellent throughout the war. 

Captain Fox was highly esteemed and freely con- 
sulted by the President, I think because of his strong 
common sense and freedom from prejudice. He 
never expressed an opinion, or, as I should better say, 
he never formed an opinion upon a subject until he 
had reduced it to the form of a mathematical propo- 
sition and, so far as practicable, proved all its details. 
Then he had an opinion and he was able to impart it 
to others. But for Captain Fox the Monitor would 
certainly not have been built in time for the fight 
with the Merrimac, and every one may imagine for 
himself what the consequences would have been had 
the Merrimac dropped anchor at the Long Bridge 
and thrown her shells into the Capitol, the Executive 
Mansion, and the Treasury, firing at will. I saw 
the captain frequently while he was engaged upon 
the subject and in almost daily consultation with the 
President. Once he said : " The proposition cannot be 
formulated. I can demonstrate many of its elements. 



GUSTAVUS VASA FOX. 311 

The vessel can be constructed ; there is no difficulty 
about her stability or her steering. The principle of 
the raft is all right. But how she will behave in 
action pounded by hundred-pound shells nobody can 
tell. It is an experiment and nothing but an experi- 
ment. But I think it should be tried unless some one 
can point out defects in the plans of Captain Ericsson 
which I cannot discover." 

The strong will of Abraham Lincoln had to be ex- 
erted — it was exerted, and the experiment was tried 
under the very eye of Captain Fox. When he re- 
turned from the scene of the conflict he seemed to 
be a changed man. He knew about when the battle 
would take place, and he left Washington to see it 
with a very anxious face. When he returned the 
care-worn expression had given place to one of restful 
satisfaction, and there was no longer any objection to 
building Monitors. 

A young man, or rather a boy, from the Atlantic 
fleet one day presented to Captain Fox a note from 
" Dave Porter, " as the captain usually denominated 
Commodore D. D. Porter, the substance of which 
was, " Cushing thinks he can sink the Albemarle and 
wants to try. I believe he can, so I send him to you. " 

" I was taken aback by the boyish appearance of 
Cushing," said Captain Fox, " but Green on the Mon- 
itor and some other boys had been doing good work, 
and I decided to examine him. 'Wiry,' I asked, 'do 
you think you can sink the rebel ram?' ' 

" 'She is surrounded by a boom of logs about a hun- 
dred yards distant,' he said. 'I know that logs with 
the bark off, that have laid for a year in one of the 
Southern rivers, are covered with a slime which is 
very slippery. As the principal difficulty is to get 



312 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

at the Albemarle, I went up one night and examined 
the boom. The logs are so slippery that a boat with 
a keel of the proper shape will ride over them easily. 
I can get at her with a suitable boat. ' 

" 'But how will you carry your torpedo?' I asked. 

" 'This way,' he replied, producing a small card on 
which he had drawn an ordinary cat-boat with a 
mast near the bow. He had hinged a spar to the 
bow which carried the torpedo on its end. When 
not in use this spar was drawn up so that it stood 
upright in contact with the mast. When ready to 
be used, the spar was lowered and the torpedo was to 
be exploded by a lanyard attached to the trigger of 
the lock." 

" Don't you think it will require a cool man to go 
through that complicated performance?" asked the 
captain. 

" Yes," he said. " A man must be cool to do any- 
thing worth doing. I think I can do it if I can get 
a boat. " 

" How do you expect to escape? The enemy will 
make the shore as light as day and hundreds of men 
will be firing upon you. " 

" I don't think I can tell beforehand what I will 
do. I propose to blow up the ram. We must take 
our chances of escape when the time comes. It may 
be best to jump overboard and swim for it. I have 
got a crew picked out and we are willing to take our 
chances." 

The boy had worked out the problem, with the re- 
sult that the chances were in favor of success. Cap- 
tain Fox gave him an order on the navy-yard at 
Chester to have two boats built under his direction. 
He found two boats there which would answer the 



GUSTAVUS VASA FOX. 313 

purpose. One was captured by the rebels, the other 
arrived safely in the river. How Cushing sunk the 
Albemarle and how he escaped he has himself told 
us, and the story is of such interest that I leave the 
reader to enjoy it and will not repeat any part of it 
here. 

After the war the ram Dunderberg was sold to 
Russia. Captain Fox proposed to take her to the 
Baltic, and our Government made him the bearer of 
its congratulations to the new emperor. I asked the 
captain whether the voyage would not be one of 
danger. 

"Not at all," he replied. "It will be much more 
comfortable than a voyage on an ocean steamer in 
midsummer. Instead of rising, falling, pitching, and 
rolling with the seas, the seas will quietly roll over 
the Dunderberg and the vessel will rest quietly on 
an even keel. Such a vessel is a raft that cannot be 
swamped." He offered to demonstrate the fact by 
tables of figures which were as inexplicable to me as 
the higher mathematics. 

As he told me afterward, experience proved the 
correctness of his figures. He had a most comforta- 
ble voyage, and delivered the vessel to Russia, where 
he was received and entertained with all the 
honors. 

Captain Fox took a leisurely journey through India 
and China. He was satisfied there was some good 
reason underlying the Chinese policy of the exclusion 
of foreigners. He believed he had ascertained that 
reason. It interested me as he gave it on his return, 
and as I have not seen it elsewhere, I repeat it on the 
chance that it may interest others. 

In the interior provinces of China, he said, the ad- 



314 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

justment of production to consumption was so close 
that in an average season the soil and the waters 
would just support the population. Not only was 
there no surplus, but every ounce of fertilizing ma- 
terial had to be saved, every superficial foot of soil 
be forced to yield its largest possible product, and the 
whole must be used with the most rigid economy. 

He had actually seen in real life the original of 
the picture in our early school geographies, "A 
Chinese selling rats and puppies for pies." If by 
drought, tempest, or any other cause the crops were 
diminished, famine was inevitable. Famines were 
frequent and the deaths by starvation numbered in- 
conceivable thousands. Any invasion of foreigners 
disturbed existing conditions and tended to increase 
the demand for and lessen the supply of food. The 
authorities therefore opposed foreigners as they did 
every other disturbing cause. 

There were few officers connected with the Govern- 
ment during the war more intelligent, I am sure 
there were none more highly esteemed by the Presi- 
dent, than Captain Fox. I do not know whether it 
was his habit to make notes. If it was, his note- 
books must contain a mine of valuable historical 
material. 

BENJAMIN WADE. 

Republicans never quite forgave Mr. Wade for his 
opposition to the renomination of Mr. Lincoln and 
the manifesto which he afterward signed with 
Henry Winter Davis. It will seem incredible to the 
present generation that General Fremont should have 
accepted a nomination which Mr. Chase refused, and 
then have had the assurance to write that if the Bal- 



BENJAMIN WADE. 315 

timore Convention nominated any one but Mr. 
Lincoln, he would not stand in the way ; but if Mr. 
Lincoln was renominated " it would be fatal to the 
country to indorse a policy and renew a power which 
has cost us the lives of thousands of men and need- 
lessly put the country on the road to bankruptcy." 
The nomination of General Fremont fell upon the 
country so dead that he probably had no friend who 
did not deeply regret that it had been made. 

Ben Wade was a bluff, outspoken, earnest Repub- 
lican who once happened to go wrong. I could forgive 
him for his error when I heard his exultation over 
the nomination of Governor Chase for chief justice. 
" In the early winter of 1861," he said, " when Chief 
Justice Taney was ill, I used to pray daily and ear- 
nestly that his life might be preserved until the in- 
auguration of President Lincoln, who would appoint 
a Republican chief justice, but when I saw how 
complete his recovery was and how his life was pro- 
longed, I began to fear that I had overdone the 
business ! " 

In this connection I must refer to what, though not 
intended for such a purpose, was a stroke of policy 
which would have excited the admiration of Riche- 
lieu. Upon the failure of the Fremont movement the 
restless element undertook to bring forward General 
Grant. They called a meeting in New York nomi- 
nally to express the national gratitude to him, really 
to bring him out as a candidate, and supposed they 
made the incident cutting to the President by send- 
ing him an invitation to the meeting. Mr. Lincoln 
replied that he could not attend, but he wrote that he 
approved of "whatever might strengthen General 
Grant and the noble armies under his direction. . . . 



316 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

He and his brave soldiers are now in the midst of 
their great trial, and I trust that at your meeting 
you will so shape your good words that they may 
turn to men and guns moving to his and their sup- 
port I " This letter crushed the movement, though 
General Grant peremptorily refused to be made a 
candidate and reiterated the President's appeal for 
aid and support. 

LINCOLN AS A WOOD-CHOPPER. 

The President one day witnessed a singular scene 
from the Potomac front of the Treasury. The Vir- 
ginia hills were covered with an original forest of 
noble chestnuts and other deciduous trees. They 
began to fall as if a resistless wave had swept over 
them, all in one direction, many acres of them at a 
time. To one who did not understand the cause it 
was almost frightful, and suggested an earthquake. 
As was not unusual, a colored messenger had brought 
the first information that the Sixth Maine, a regiment 
of lumbermen, would attack the forest on that day. 
They cut the trees until they were almost ready to 
fall, and then selecting those on the outside which 
would fall in the same direction, felled them at the 
same moment. As they struck the trees nearest 
them those also fell, and the whole forest went down 
like a row of bricks standing on end. A Treasury 
officer explained that the scene was the work of the 
Maine wood-choppers. 

"I don't believe," said the President, "that there 
is a man in that regiment with longer arms than 
mine or who can swing an axe better than I can. 
By jings! I should like to change works with one of 
them. Sometimes I think that a private could run 



FRANCIS E. SPINNER. 317 

the engine better than I do ! I would like to see all 
the soldiers in the rebel armies falling like those 
trees ! and then I would like to see them all rise up as 
loyal men and stand upon their feet!" If this ex- 
pression was blood-thirsty, it was the worst which I 
heard from his lips during the war. 

FRANCIS E. SPINNER. 

One of the best men in the civil service of the 
United States was the Treasurer, Francis E. Spinner. 
He was not a many-sided man. He had only one, 
his loyal side, which was so thick that it went 
clear through him. He was free and outspoken 
in his opinions. He sometimes used adjectives 
which were more emphatic and appropriate than they 
were select. I never regarded his expressions as at 
all profane. 

One day he entered the Register's office very 
abruptly. He was literally furious. He threw a 
newspaper cutting upon my desk. " Read that, " he 
exclaimed, "and see to what depths of infamy a 
Northern copperhead can descend. If the scoundrel 
who wrote that don't broil hereafter, it will be be- 
cause the devil hasn't got enough hot iron to make a 
gridiron." 

The article stated that Jeff. Davis was paid his 
salary in Confederate money, which was so depre- 
ciated that his twenty-five thousand was only worth 
fifteen hundred dollars, which was all he had to live 
on, but Lincoln would not take greenbacks because 
they were depreciated, and collected his twenty-five 
thousand a year in gold or gold certificates, while the 
soldiers had to accept greenbacks at a discount of 
more than fifty per cent ! 



318 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

The Treasurer wished me to have a statement made 
of the amounts shown by my books to have been paid 
Mr. Lincoln on account of salary. He was about to 
make a statement from his books, and he wished to 
publish my statement with his. I objected that we 
should dignify the scandal by noticing it, but he said 
he was getting letters every day inquiring about it 
and they made him sick. He could not kill the 
rascal, for he wrote anonymously, and we must there- 
fore step on his lie. 

Of course there was not a shadow of truth in the 
statement. The President's salary, like all others, 
was paid monthly by sending him a draft on the 
Treasury for the amount, deducting the internal rev- 
enue tax. These drafts he had not collected, but 
had left the money in the Treasury without interest 
until the loss of interest amounted, according to my 
recollection, to some five thousand dollars. The libel 
did operate to the profit of the President. His friends 
got from him written authority and afterward in- 
vested such amounts of his salary as he did not use 
in bonds of the United States bought at current rates 
in the open market. 

This grand old man, Treasurer Spinner, died about 
two years ago. He was a long and patient sufferer 
from a painful disease which destroyed his eyesight 
long before his death. One of the choicest memo- 
rabilia in my possession is what I believe to be the 
last letter written by his own honest hand. 

A TREASURY AUDITOR OF THE ANTIQUE PATTERN. 

One of the auditors, a "hold-over" from some 
former administration, one day wished to read me an 
opinion which he had just completed. Evidently he 



TREASURY AUDITOR OF ANTIQUE PATTERN. 319 

was very proud of it, and I consented to listen to it 
at a considerable loss of time. 

When it was decided that Captain Fox should at- 
tempt to reinforce Major Anderson in Fort Sumter, 
the commissary or quartermaster, in New York had 
been ordered to purchase and load the vessel with 
supplies. That officer, aware that Major Anderson 
and his men had been living for a long time on very 
ancient army rations, had upon his own motion sent 
them some canned vegetables and fresh meats, small 
quantities of tobacco, cigars, and fluids that came in 
bottles, preserved fruits, and such other delicacies as 
he could think of ; these extra articles amounting in 
all to some four or five hundred dollars. He had paid 
and claimed a credit for them in his monthly account 
upon which this auditor had to pass before the credits 
were allowed. 

The first half of the opinion, which was thirty 
foolscap pages in length, was a lecture to the officer 
upon the necessity of conforming to the regulations 
and the imminent danger of departing from them. 
Each credit was then considered in extenso, with the 
final result that all the items were disallowed. After 
reading the opinion he asked what I thought of it. 

" Have you any copies of the document?" I asked. 

" No." But he intended to have copies made. 

"Any memoranda or notes of it?" 

"No." He had prepared it at his residence. He 
had written it off-hand and had made no notes. 

" Are you quite certain that you have left no scraps 
of paper, no pencil-marks, nothing which could be 
associated or connected with the document?" 

" I am," he said. " But why are you so particular 
about notes or memoranda?" 



320 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

" Because," I said, " if I were in jour place I should 
be very much ashamed of that document. I should 
put it into the nearest fire and watch it until it was 
consumed to the last word or period. I should be 
sure that I had picked up and destroyed every scrap 
of writing connected with it. I should then wash 
my hands thoroughly and pray the Almighty to for- 
give me the sin of writing it. Then I should have 
some hope of sleeping with a clear conscience." 

Soon after he left my office. He never showed me 
another opinion. I thought from his appearance that 
he was not pleased with my criticisms. However, 
some months afterward it occurred to me to send to 
my files room for the account of the officer in New 
York for April, 18(31. It was one containing the ob- 
jectionable credits, and I was pleased to see that not 
one of them was disallowed. 

ADAM GUROWSKI. 

Among the many singular characters developed by 
the war in Washington, the most extraordinary, me 
judice, was Adam Gurowski. He was employed as 
a translator in the State Department. No one knew 
anything about his early histoiy. He was supposed 
to be a Pole who had been obliged to leave Europe on 
account of his revolutionary proclivities. He spoke 
of crowned heads as familiar acquaintances, and 
claimed that he had taught Louis Napoleon and 
Cavour how to conspire. He was an amusing and 
interesting person, thoroughly truthful, but his judg- 
ment was so warped by prejudice as to be unreliable. 
He had an amazing facility for making acquaintan- 
ces and discovering secrets, and wielded a trenchant 
pen. He hated slavery. I think in the course of the 



ADAM GUROWSKI. 321 

war he praised and blamed every man of any promi- 
nence on our side in the military and civil service. 
I find these notes of his which I preserved on account 
of their structure : 

" The old brave warrior Scott watched at the door 
of the Union ; his shadow made the infamous rats 
tremble and crawl off, and so Scott transmitted to 
Lincoln what could be saved during the treachery of 
Buchanan." 

" Seward, Sumner, and the rest fear that Europe 
will recognize the secesh. I know there is no danger 
and I tell them so. Europe recognizes fa its accom- 
pli s, and a great deal of blood will run before secesh 
becomes un fait accompli." 

"April, 1861. Consummatum est. The crime 
in full blast ; Sumter bombarded. Now the admin- 
istration is startled; so is the brave old North. The 
President calls on the country for 75,000 men; tele- 
gram has spoken; they rise, they arm, they come. 
The excitement, the wrath, is terrible. Party lines 
burn, dissolved by excitement. Now the people is in 
fusion as bronze; if Lincoln and the leaders have 
mettle, they can cast such arms, moral, material, and 
legislative, as will at once destroy this rebellion." 

Gurowski at the outset judged correctly of the 
length and magnitude of the struggle. In April, 
1861, he wrote: "This war — war it will be and a ter- 
rible one, notwithstanding all the prophecies of Mr. 
Seward to the contrary — this war will generate new 
necessities and new formulas, it will bring forth new 
social, physical, and moral creations; so we are in 
the period of gestation. But democracy will not be 
destroyed ; but destroyed will be the most infamous 
oligarchy ever known in history; oligarchy issued 
21 



322 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

neither from the sword, nor the gown, nor the shop, 
but wombed, generated, cemented, and sustained by 
the traffic in man." 

Was it not remarkable that this foreigner, whose 
views were so extreme that some called him crazy, 
should have judged the coming contest more accu- 
rately than the best American statesmen? 

On the Gth of October, 1861, Gurowski saw and 
passed his judgment upon McClellan. " My enthu- 
siasm for him," he wrote, "my faith is wholly ex- 
tinct. It made me sick at heart to hear him, and to 
think that he is to decide over the destinies and blood 
of a free people. And he already an idol, incensed, 
worshipped before he has done anything whatever. 
He may have courage, so has almost every animal, 
but he has not the decision and the courage of a mili- 
tary leader and a captain." 

On the Oth of November, 1862, he wrote: "Great 
and holy day! McClellan gone overboard. Better 
late than never. But this belated act of justice can- 
not atone for all the deadly disasters caused by this 
horrible vampire." 

In July, 1863, when President Lincoln was press- 
ing the pursuit of the rebel army, Gurowski wrote : 
" Lee retreats toward the Potomac. If they let him 
recross there, our shame is nameless." On the 16th 
he said : " Lee recrossed the Potomac ! Thundering 
storms, rising waters, and about 150,000 men at his 
heels ! Our brave soldiers again baffled, almost dis- 
honored by know-nothing generalship. We have 
lost the occasion to crush three- fourths of the rebel- 
lion !" 

" In that fated, cursed council of war which allowed 
Lee to escape, my patriot Wadsworth was the most 



PERLEY P. PITKIN. 323 

decided, the most outspoken in favor of attacking 
Lee. Wadsworth never fails when honor and patri- 
otism are to be sustained." 

Does any critic ask wh} T I have quoted these notes 
of Gurowski? It is because he did not hesitate to 
say what the masses of the American people thought, 
what their leaders knew but had not the courage to 
declare. 

PERLEY P. PITKIN, AVOLUNTEER QUARTER- 
MASTER. 

It was at Montpelier, in the early fifties, during 
my first term in the State Senate, that a very long 
and awkward Vermonter came to my rooms and, in- 
troducing himself, consulted me about some act which 
seriously affected the town he represented. Had I 
judged by his apparel and appearance, I should have 
pronounced him green, but before the first interview 
was over I had discovered that he had a "heap of 
common sense," and knew perfectly what he did not 
want as well as what he wanted. I liked him, and 
though I have entirely forgotten what he wanted, I 
have no doubt, upon general principles, that I assisted 
him to the best of my ability. 

In the autumn of 1861 he appeared one evening 
at my house in Washington, in uniform, accompanied 
by his son, a lad of some ten } T ears. He had no busi- 
ness, he said ; he called on me because I had assisted 
him once and he might have to call on me again. 
He then told me that he was quartermaster of the 
Second Vermont Regiment, which was then in camp, 
under Colonel Whiting, back of the ancient city of 
Alexandria, near Monson's Hill. He volunteered 



324 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

the statement that he didn't know much about the 
"regulations," but he expected to learn, and if he 
got into trouble he might want me to help him out 
— which, of course, I promised to do. 

My next information about Quartermaster Pitkin 
was that he expected to be arrested on a charge of 
stealing a steamboat which was in the government 
service on the Potomac. Lieutenant-Colonel Stan- 
nard, who was afterward heard from at Gettj-sburg, 
gave me the facts, and said the regiment intended to 
stand by their quartermaster. Pitkin had just re- 
turned from Vermont with the horses which he had 
purchased for the mounted officers of the regiment, 
and had them in a stable in the outskirts of Alexan- 
dria. One night there was an alarm, the long roll 
was beaten, and the word went through the regiment 
that the terrible Mosby with his uncounted guerillas 
was about to pounce on the camp. Pitkin summoned 
his men, rushed his horses down to the dock and on 
board a steamboat which he found there, with steam 
up, waiting to carry some messenger to Washington. 
Being in uniform the engineer readily obeyed his 
orders to start the engine; some one went to the 
wheel, the boat was cast off and began to turn into 
the river, when the officer who was waiting for his 
dispatches succeeded in leaping on board and in 
great wrath wished to know what he was doing 
with his steamboat. 

Pitkin replied that he " was taking a lot of the best 
horses in the country to a safe place where the rebels 
would not get them." 

" But you have no right to take my boat ! You are 
violating the regulations ! You are liable to be court- 
martialled and shot. Bring that boat back to the dock 



PERLEY P. PITKIN. 325 

or I will complain of you and have you arrested. 
You will certainly be shot if you disobey." 

"Oh! that's all right," coolly remarked the quar- 
termaster. " They can shoot me if they want to, but 
Mosby can't have them hosses!" 

Mosby did not get "them hosses." It turned out 
to be a false alarm, and being satisfied on that score, 
Pitkin ordered the steamboat back to the dock and 
surrendered possession to the legitimate officer. He 
was not court-martialled. 

Pitkin came to my house several times, always ac- 
companied by his son. Some time in the spring of 
Grant's battle summer of 18G4, I saw that he wore 
the undress uniform of a colonel. I asked him about 
his promotion, to which he made some indefinite reply 
that he knew about wagons, and Grant had put him 
in charge of the army-wagon train. He did not tell 
me, what I learned later, that the army- wagon train 
consisted of four thousand wagons, and that his 
energy and abilitj^ had gained for him as high a 
position in the esteem of General Grant as General 
Amos Beckwith, another Green Mountain boy, had 
in that of General Sherman. 

A surgeon brought my next report of Quartermas- 
ter Pitkin. It came just after Grant's continuous 
fighting for a week in the Wilderness, when that 
dreadful procession of ambulances, filled with the 
wounded, moved continuously for three days from the 
Sixth Street wharf to the hills north of Washington, 
never halting except to take in and discharge their 
helpless passengers. The wounded were brought to 
Belle Plain, on the Rappahannock, whence they were 
sent by steamers to Washington. All the steamers 
obtainable were making their trips as rapidly as pos- 



326 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

sible, and yet so great was the multitude that thou- 
sands of wounded and dying men were lying in the 
fields, wit' out shelter, awaiting their turn. Grant 
knew who the man /as who would soonest get that 
suffering crowd into the hospitals, and he sent him 
from his other iimo] tant duties to this indispensable 
one. 

While these transfers were being made with all the 
energy possible to k nan hands, a fine, swift steamer 
came down from Washington. It was General But- 
ler's dispatch-boat, with an officer on board carrying 
dispatches to the general. He had gone on his mis- 
sion. Finding the steamboat at the wharf, Pitkin 
ordered his men to carry the wounded on board. The 
officer in charge stormed, raved, and threatened dire 
things if General Butler's boat was interfered with. 

" Do you propose to have this boat do nothing for 
two days, with our men dj T ing in the fields, when in 
that time she can make four trips to Washington?" 
demanded Pitkin. 

The officer declared that he had nothing to do with 
the wounded. His orders were to lie at the dock 
until the messenger returned, and no man would 
move the boat except by his orders. 

Pitkin called a sergeant and a file of men. " If 
that man," he said, pointing to the young officer, "at- 
tempts to interfere with the transfer of the wounded, 
you will put him under arrest and remove him !" 

Then Pitkin went about his business. The steam- 
boat made four trips to Washington before the return 
of the messenger, and when she carried him to the 
capital she carried another load of the wounded. 

The young officer whose self-esteem had suffered 
in the transaction made complaint; a court of inquiry 



PERLEY P. PITKIN. 327 

was ordered, which recommended thatP-tkin should 
be tried by court-martial upon serious charges ancl 
specifications. These were prepared anc i submitted 
to General Grant for his app- yal. Nothing was 
heard from them for some time, a>ad the young officer 
made inquiry of General Grant whether his attention 
had been called to them. The gt ueral replied that 
he had considered the case, and had decided that he 
would postpone its further con? .eration until after 
the close of the ivar. 

Late in November, 18G4, the governor of Vermont 
insisted that Pitkin must return to take the important 
office of quartermaster-general ofcthe State, to which 
he had been unanimously elected by the legislature. 
Greatly to General Grant's regret Pitkin obeyed his 
governor and resigned his office. He held the new 
office to which he had been elected for the six follow- 
ing years and then declined a re-election. He was 
not tried by court-martial. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

Law as a Progressive Science — Is Progress 
Always an Advance? — Circumstantial Ev- 
idence — The Boorn Case. 

The law is progressive. Progress is an element of 
all true science — very desirable when it is in the direc- 
tion of an advance. It should be the care of the bar as 
well as the courts to see to it that the law does not 
experience what is sometimes called apocatastasis, 
or progress backward. 

Recent occurrences, including decisions of courts 
once of high authority, have called this subject to the 
attention of thoughtful members of the bar. I will 
not name them further than to say that they suggest 
the possibility of securing, through evidence wholly 
circumstantial, a conviction for crimes which have 
not been committed. The danger arises from accept- 
ing circumstantial evidence of the corpus delicti; 
of the fact that a crime was committed as well as of 
the guilt of the person charged; and the violation 
of another canon of criminal evidence that circum- 
stances consistent with any possible hypothesis of 
innocence are not admissible to prove guilt. 

An incident which occurred when I was a student 
illustrates the caution of the courts of that time in 
accepting proof of the corpus delicti. A man was 
indicted in Franklin County, Vt. , for the murder of 
his wife and child by drowning. In crossing a pond 

328 



CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. 329 

or lake in a leaky boat, the boat sank, the prisoner 
got ashore, but his wife and child were drowned. 
The rural community promptly decided that they 
were murdered. The necessary proof was supplied 
by a dream. Some neighbor dreamed that the shawls 
and detachable clothing of the victims had been con- 
cealed by the prisoner in a certain hollow tree, where 
they were found. As they must have been concealed 
by the prisoner, the fact was accepted as proof of his 
guilt. 

The husband was indicted by the grand jury for 
murder. He was inadequately defended by a young 
attorne3 T , and when the evidence of the dream was 
offered, Benjamin H. Smalley, who was sitting 
within the bar, volunteered to argue the objection to 
its admission. The Smalleys were a fearless race. 
It was another member of the family, David A., 
who as judge of the Circuit Court of the United 
States, sitting in New York, convicted a wretch and 
caused him to be hung for piracy ; and early in the 
spring of 1861, in a charge to the grand jury in the 
same city, defined the crime of treason in words that 
delighted loyal men and chilled the blood in the hearts 
of those who supposed they could commit the crime 
with impunity. 

It must have been a powerful argument made on 
the spur of the moment which made such an impres- 
sion upon the mind of a student that it has not been 
effaced by the lapse of forty years. The point of it 
was that neither the proof offered nor any that had 
been given was satisfactory evidence that a murder 
had been committed ; and that the proof on that point 
must be positive and leave no doubt whatever of the 
fact of the crime. He cited as a precedent one of 



330 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

the most interesting cases which ever occurred, and 
on its force the evidence offered was excluded. Evi- 
dence of the prisoner's admissions secured his convic- 
tion, but his insanity rapidly developed and he died 
soon after the verdict. 

The case cited by Mr. Smalley is known in Ver- 
mont as " the Boom case.'''' The pamphlets in which 
it was reported are so scarce and the case is so in- 
structive that I will give its substance. 

In the year 1812 there resided in the town of Man- 
chester, Vt., the two brothers Stephen and Jesse 
Boorn, and near them Russel Colvin, who had mar- 
ried their sister. All were in humble circumstances 
and supported their families by labor. All were of 
very ordinary capacity ; Colvin a man of weak in- 
tellect, who was at times deranged. His family in- 
creased, his ability to maintain them diminished, 
and the obligation of supporting his wife and chil- 
dren in part fell upon the Booms. This necessity 
led to bickerings and altercations, which became fre- 
quent and sometimes led to assaults upon the unfor- 
tunate Colvin. Two or three times he had disap- 
peared, leaving his family to be wholty supported by 
the Booms, but he had returned after absences, the 
longest of about nine months. 

In May, 1812, Colvin again disappeared. Months 
and then years elapsed and he did not return. There 
were suspicions that he had met with foul play. Re- 
marks were made by Stephen and Jesse Boorn which 
led the neighbors to believe that they were in some 
way connected with his disappearance. 

Nearly seven years had passed after Colvin's last 
disappearance, when another member of the Boorn 
family, an uncle of Stephen and Jesse, had a dream. 



THE BOORN CASE. 331 

In his dream Colvin came to his bedside and told him 
that he had been murdered ; that if he would follow 
him he would lead him to the spot where his body 
was buried. This dream was repeated the conven- 
tional three times, and the place where the body was 
deposited was pointed out. It was a hole about four 
feet square, originally made for burying potatoes, on 
the site where a house had formerly stood ; the hole 
having since been filled up. This pit was opened. It 
yielded a large jack-knife, a smaller one, and a but- 
ton. Before they were shown to her, Mrs. Colvin 
described them minutely; and as soon as she saw 
them, declared that the large knife and the button 
belonged to her husband. 

A marvellous circumstance then transpired. A 
lad with a spaniel dog, walking near the house of 
the father of the Booms, observed a decaying stump, 
to which the dog endeavored to draw his attention 
by whining and running several times from the stump 
to his master. The dog then with his paws dug from 
beneath the stump a cluster of bones. Further inves- 
tigation disclosed in the hollow cavity of the same 
stump two toe-nails which were supposed once to 
have been attached to a human foot. The doctors 
decided that the bones were human, though one of 
them thought otherwise. 

About four years previously an amputated leg had 
been buried a few miles away. This was exhumed 
as a standard of comparison, when it was unanimously 
decided that the bones were not human. But it was 
concluded that the toe-nails were, and as the bones 
were somewhat broken, it was sagely decided that 
the body had been burned and the bones, not being 
consumed, had been cast into the stump, other bones 



332 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

being deposited with them for purposes of deception. 
It was then remembered that after Colvin's disap- 
pearance a barn belonging to the father of the Boorns 
had been accidentally consumed by fire. About the 
same time the Boorns had burned a log-heap in the 
vicinity. It was conjectured that the body, origi- 
nally buried under the log-heap, had been then placed 
under the barn and there partially consumed. 

Before these discoveries were made the rural com- 
munity had almost unanimously decided that a mur- 
der had been perpetrated. It also transpired that on 
the day of Colvin's disappearance he had had a quar- 
rel with the Boorns which might have ended in his 
murder. But as the evidence was wholly circum- 
stantial it was determined to dismiss Jesse Boorn, 
who had been arrested, from any further examina- 
tion. The inquiry had been adjourned from the 27th 
of April to the 1st day of May. In the mean time 
the search was continued and the discoveries adverted 
to had been made. Jesse was on the very point of 
being discharged, when with a trembling voice he 
said that " the first time he suspected that his brother 
Stephen had murdered Colvin was last winter, when 
Stephen told him that there had been a quarrel be- 
tween himself and Colvin, and Colvin attempted to 
run away ; that he struck him with a club or a stone 
on the back of his neck or head, which had fractured 
his skull and he supposed he was dead ; that he could 
not tell what became of the body." 

Stephen had removed to Lewis County, N. Y., a 
distance of nearly two hundred miles. An officer 
and two neighbors set out from Manchester, and, as- 
sisted by the people of Lewis County, surrounded the 
house of the supposed murderer, arrested him, put 



THE BOORN CASE. 333 

him in irons, tore him from his distressed family, 
and carried him to Manchester. He stoutly asserted 
his innocence and declared that he knew nothing 
about the murder of his brother-in-law. The pris- 
oners were kept apart for a time, but finally were put 
into the same cell. Stephen denied the statements 
of Jesse with indignation. The examination was 
continued for many days. Every item of evidence 
was exaggerated and new facts were adduced. A 
son of Colvin testified that he saw his uncle Stephen 
knock his father down, when he was frightened and 
ran away. Jesse retracted his former statements and 
denied that Stephen ever told him that he had killed 
Colvin. But the community was of opinion that both 
prisoners were guilty, and they were committed for 
trial on the charge of murder, to be tried in the fol- 
lowing September. 

The prisoners were indicted by the grand jury, 
but the trial was deferred until the 2 (3th of October. 
Stephen had maintained his innocence in the most 
solemn and impressive terms. In the long delay of 
the trial the people of the vicinity had free access to 
the prisoners, who were subjected to the influences 
which not infrequently control the opinions of the 
public. Belief in their guilt was universal. Every 
succeeding visitor advised them to confess as the onry 
means of saving their lives. Good men knelt with 
them and prayed the Lord to lead them to confession ; 
men in a little brief authority promised them the 
weight of their influence if they would confess. The 
black shadow of the gallows was ever before their 
eyes, only to be removed by confession. The rattle 
of their chains seemed to voice confession, the walls 
of their cells appeared to echo back the sound ; even 



334 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

hope itself seemed bound up in the single word con- 
fession ! 

It was not strange that the weak minds of these 
inferior men lost their power of resistance and finally 
yielded. On the 27th of August Stephen called for 
pen, ink, and paper and in his cell wrote and signed 
his "confession." The miserable falsehood is before 
me. It is unnecessary to copy it in detail. Still, 
some of its expressions so clearly show the inexplica- 
ble workings of the mind that they ought to be pre- 
sented. They had an altercation; Stephen called 
Colvin a little Tory. Colvin struck at him "with a 
piece of beech limb about two feet long." Stephen 
" caught it out of Colvin's hand, struck him a back- 
handed blow — there was a knot in it one inch long, 
which went in on the great cord on the back of Col- 
vin's neck, close by the hair, broke off, and he fell." 
When he found Colvin was dead he put him in the 
corner of the fence by the cellar hole and put briars 
over him ; in the night he dug a grave with a hoe, put 
him into it, covered him up and went home, crying. 
Long afterward he took up the bonet, and buried them 
under the stable floor of his father's barn. The next 
day the barn was burned. He went there, gathered 
up the few bones, and threw them into the river. 
There were a few little things that he gathered up 
and dropped into the hollow stump and kicked the 
dirt over them. "All these things I acknowledge 
before the world." 

The trial came on in an excited community. The 
prisoners pleaded not guilty. Separate trials were 
denied them. Both repudiated their confessions and 
solemnly asserted that the admissions were extorted 
from their fears. An audience of six hundred people 



THE BOORN CASE. 335 

watched the trial. Every trifling circumstance was 
given in evidence, and as its substance had reached 
the jury, the prisoner's counsel permitted the written 
confession to be read. There could be but one result 
in such an excitement. Both prisoners were convicted 
of the crime of murder, and were sentenced " to be 
hung by the neck until they were dead" on the 28th 
of the following January. 

The legislature was then in session at Montpelier, 
the State capital. Some of the good citizens of Man- 
chester presented the petitions of the condemned pris- 
oners for the commutation of the death-sentences to 
imprisonment for life. They were willing that the 
sentence of Jesse should be mitigated, but for Stephen 
they had no mercy. The legislature commuted the 
sentence of Jesse, but, by a vote of 97 against 42, left 
Stephen to the mercies of the hangman. 

And hung he would have been but for an accident 
which should have covered that whole community 
with mortification. For many years there had been 
settled over a white congregation at West Rutland 
a colored clergyman, the Rev. Lemuel Haynes. From 
a very low origin in Connecticut, he had by his own 
exertions obtained an education, studied for the min- 
istry, and become somewhat celebrated for his ability 
and fidelity in his Master's service. He had preached 
a sermon on ''universal salvation," in answer to one 
by the Rev. Eli Ballou, which it was said had been 
of tener republished than any English book except the 
immortal allegory of John Bunyan. He had resigned 
his charge at West Rutland on account of his ad- 
vanced age and come to Manchester to reside. But 
he had not ceased to visit the prisoner and comfort 
the mourner. He visited the jail in Manchester, saw 



33G PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

Jesse Boorn take his farewell of his brother and of 
his own family and depart to the State prison, 
there to spend the remainder of his life. He read 
the Scriptures to and prayed with the brother left to 
die. He insisted that the convict should be permitted 
to have a candle and other comforts. Here is what 
the venerable man wrote of him: "He said: 'Mr. 
Ha}-nes, I see no way but I must die; everything 
works against me ; but I am an innocent man ; this 
you will know when I am dead. What will become 
of my poor wife and children?' I told him God 
would take care of them. He said : 'I don't want to 
die. If they would let me live even here some 
longer, perhaps something would happen which would 
convince the people of my innocence.-' I was about 
to leave the prison when he asked, 'Will you pray 
with me?' He rose with heavy chains on his hands 
and legs, being chained down to the floor, and stood 
on his feet while I prayed." 

And this good minister said to himself, " This poor 
creature may be an innocent man. I will try an ex- 
periment. " In the next issue of the Rutland Herald, 
the nearest newspaper, appeared this advertisement : 

" Murder ! Printers of newspapei-s throughout the United 
States are desired to publish that Stephen Boorn is sentenced 
to be executed for the murder of Russel Colvin, who has been 
absent about seven years. Any person who can give infor- 
mation of the said Colvin may save the life of an innocent 
man by making immediate communication. Colvin is about 
five feet five inches high, light complexion, light- colored hair, 
blue eyes, about forty years of age. 

"Manchester, Vt., November 26th, 1819." 

The minister was a poor man. He was sharply 
ridiculed for his folly in spending his money upon so 



THE BOORN CASE. 337 

foolish an advertisement. But he had not long to 
wait for his reward. The New York Evening Post 
published the advertisement as an item of interest on 
the 5th of December. On the Gth of December Taber 
Chadwick, a citizen of Shrewsbury, Monmouth Co., 
N. J., informed the editor of that paper that the 
murdered Colvin was then living in that town, 
weak in mind but in good bodily health. The Post 
published Mr. Chadwick's letter, and the informa- 
tion it comprised was not long in reaching the com- 
munity which was so fierce in the punishment of 
crime that it had come very near taking the life of 
an innocent man. Even then many insisted that the 
story was a hoax which would end in the ridicule of 
the too confiding colored minister. One Whelpley, 
formerly of Manchester, but then of New York, who 
knew Colvin, went to New Jersey in quest of him. 
He returned and wrote to Manchester that " he had 
Colvin with him." Another acquaintance wrote to 
Manchester, " While I am writing Russel Colvin is 
before me." Even then the good people of Manches- 
ter were incredulous and laid wagers that the report 
was a deception. 

But on the 2 2d of December, when the stage arrived 
at Bennington, where the court was in session, Mr. 
Whelpley was one of its passengers and Russel Col- 
vin ivas another. The court suspended its session 
to look upon one who in a sense had been dead and 
was alive again. Colvin recognized and called sev- 
eral acquaintances by name. 

" Toward evening, " continues the narrative of the 

good minister, " Colvin reached Manchester. The 

cry was raised 'Colvin has come!' The stage was 

driven swiftly, and a signal given. All was bustle 

22 



338 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

and confusion. The stage stopped at Captain Black's 
Inn. The village was all alive ; all were running for 
the sight of the man whom all believed to be dead. 
The prison doors were unbolted and the news an- 
nounced to Stephen that Colvin had come. The 
chains on his arms were taken off while those on his 
legs remained, so impatient was he to meet the one 
who came to bring him life. Colvin gazed upon the 
chains and asked, 'What is that for, Stephen?' The 
latter answered, 'Because they say I murdered you.' 
Russel replied, 'You never hurt me!' " 

There is no occasion for pursuing the narrative of 
the excellent clergyman. I regard it as one of the 
most interesting in the annals of crime. The rever- 
end author published it in the year 1820 as an ap- 
pendix to his sermon entitled " The Prisoner Released. 
A sermon delivered at Manchester, Vt., Lord's day, 
January 9th, 1820, on the remarkable interposition 
of Divine Providence in the deliverance of Stephen 
and Jesse Boorn, who had been under sentence of 
death for the supposed murder of Russel Colvin." 

The important difference between the Boorn case 
and the case now attracting attention is obvious. 
In the first what is termed in the law " the corpus 
delicti" the fact of the murder, was assumed ; in the 
second case it is proved. But when the public is in- 
formed that the gravest suspicions against the ac- 
cused rest upon her contradictor} 7 statements, we 
must be permitted to say that such statements are 
very unreliable, that the Boorn case shows how worth- 
less they are when they rise to the dignity of com- 
plete confession of guilt. That they are contradic- 
tory proves that they are unstudied and ought to be 



THE BOORN CASE. 339 

regarded as an indication of innocence rather than 
as an evidence of criminality. 

Notwithstanding the numerous and excellent max- 
ims of criminal law the observance of which is sup- 
posed to insure the protection of innocent persons 
charged with the crime of murder, such innocent 
persons have been convicted and executed. Such an 
event as the taking of a human life to avenge a crime 
not committed is shocking to the moral sense. It 
will never again happen if judges will require posi- 
tive proof of the corpus delicti, and after the crime is 
absolutely proved will follow the rule of law which dis- 
regards circumstances consistent with any hypoth- 
esis of innocence, and admits in evidence only those 
which are inconsistent with any theory except that 
of the guilt of the person charged with the crime. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

Abraham Lincoln: A Study — His Origin and 
Early Life. 

I shall undertake to write a sketch of Abraham 
Lincoln as he was known by me ; to outline his por- 
trait as it exists in my memory. From his first in- 
auguration I can write from personal knowledge. His 
earlier life I must sketch from such materials as I 
have been able to collect from sources which I regard 
as authentic. 

The Lincoln of my memory is a most attractive 
character and will form an instructive study for 
future generations. It is a subject for which my 
respect and my love increases with my years. If 
my outline shall attract the attention of the reader 
so that he shall fill it with all the facts and circum- 
stances which may afterward fall under his notice, 
my whole object will be . attained and I shall have 
discharged a duty to the memory of the man I loved. 

I am not about to attempt another biography of 
Abraham Lincoln. I might do so without apology, 
for anything new and authentic concerning him will 
be welcomed by the American people. The number 
of those who can write of him from personal knowl- 
edge is rapidly diminishing; until for every good life 
of Washington there is an equally good one of Lin- 
coln, there is little danger that the subject will be 
exhausted. 

340 



LIVES OF WASHINGTON. 341 

It would be well indeed for the youth of our time 
if they were as familiar with the facts of President 
Lincoln's life as their ancestors of the early years 
of the present century were with those of the life of 
Washington. Lives of Washington were published 
in country towns and exchanged by travelling ped- 
dlers for anything the farmer had to sell. Young 
orators in the district schools spoke their pieces from 
these books ; they were read aloud in the family by 
the firelight. The name of Washington was vener- 
ated because his services were known. 

I can read from "my own memory words written 
upon it before I was eight years old : " In the His- 
tory of Man we contemplate with particular satisfac- 
tion those Legislators, Heroes and Philosophers whose 
Wisdom, Valor and Virtue have contributed to the 
Happiness of the Human Species. We trace the 
Luminous Progress of those Excellent Beings with 
Secret Complacency. Oar Emulation is roused while 
we behold them steadily pursue the Path of Rectitude 
in defiance of every Obstruction. We rejoice that 
we were of the same Species and thus Self-love be- 
comes the Handmaid of Virtue." Such, capitals in- 
cluded, are the introductory observations to " Bio- 
graphical Memoirs of the Illustrious Gen. George 
Washington," a book of one hundred and sixty pages, 
21mo, published in 1813, in the mountain hamlet of 
Barnard, Vt., by Joseph Dix. It was published 
elsewhere many times. The volume is not much 
larger than the " New England Primer, " which it 
resembles. It has done more to disseminate the 
knowledge of the great events in the life of " The 
Father of his Country " than the more pretentious 
volumes of John Marshall and Washington Irving. 



342 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

The lives of Abraham Lincoln already published 
comprise all kinds, from the fairly good to those which 
are untruthful and misleading. The great work of 
Hay and Nicolay will always be indispensable to the 
student of that most important chapter of our history 
covered by his administration. But their volumes 
are rather a mine of materials than a deduction of 
facts, and require a more careful digest. The smaller 
life by Mr. Arnold is a charming biography, true as 
to its statements of fact. But Mr. Arnold was the 
associate and friend of Mr. Lincoln. How dearly he 
loved him his book discloses. The charm imparted 
to his pen by his affection is very delightful, but 
it sometimes leads one to distrust his impartiality. 

Other lives of Lincoln may be passed without com- 
ment. He is an inadequate biographer of a great 
man who charges his mature age with the errors of 
his youth or is unable to appreciate his intellectual 
growth. No amount of protest will convince the 
impartial reader that the most reliable biographers 
of a. public man are those who have abandoned his 
party and his principles and gone over into the camp 
of the enemy. 

The writers who are responsible for the most er- 
roneous views of the character of Abraham Lincoln 
are those who assert that he had a special pride in 
his humble origin and the poverty which repressed 
his early growth, and that he delighted in low and 
vulgar anecdote. Their ignorance is pitiable, inex- 
cusable. He inherited a desponding temperament ; 
his childhood except for his mother would have been 
cheerless; that mother died and left him desolate. 
There was little enough of sunshine in his 3*outh. 
Up to the age of twenty-two his life had been a con- 



ANCESTORS OF LINCOLN. 343 

stant struggle against privation and poverty; he 
failed in every undertaking. His surveying instru- 
ments were sold by the sheriff on an execution for 
debt. He loved with all the intensity of his soul, and 
his love was returned by one who might have flooded 
his life with sunshine. She was stricken and died. 
He would not have been human if he had not become 
sad and melancholy. Despondency became almost 
his second nature. Great responsibilities were cast 
upon him which he would not evade, which he dis- 
charged with the most scrupulous fidelity. Where 
weaker men would have drowned their cares in dis- 
sipation, he sought a momentary escape from them 
in a humorous book or a sparkling story. That any 
form of vulgarity had any attraction for him, that 
he was proud of the poverty of his birth or early life, 
are statements never imposed upon any one who knew 
Abraham Lincoln. 

His many-sided character cannot be estimated by 
ordinary rules. Men have usually attained eminence 
by the gradual development of qualities, sometimes 
promoted by advantages of position, the assistance 
of friends, and association with other men. Mr. Lin- 
coln pre-eminently made himself, by intense thought, 
application, and good judgment. His intellectual 
growth was phenomenal. He reached celebrity al- 
most at a bound. In the short space of six years the 
country attorney became the emancipator of a race, 
the preserver of the Republic, the greatest of Presi- 
dents, the foremost man of all his time. That study 
can scarcely fail to be profitable which gives us any 
better comprehension of such a character. 



344 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

The ancestors of Abraham Lincoln were of Anglo- 
Saxon blood, enriched by years of New England cul- 
ture which produced a stalwart race of men who 
had for several generations followed westward the ad- 
vancing frontier. They had driven the Indians from 
the "dark and bloody ground," and, companions of 
Boone and the hunters of Kentucky, were clearing 
away the forests and planting the settlements which 
have since grown into great interior commonwealths. 

Thomas Lincoln was an average representative of 
those early settlers. A boy of six years, he had seen 
his father shot dead by an Indian, whose triumphant 
3'ell was changed to a death-scream as his heart was 
pierced by a bullet from the rifle of the boy's brother. 
In such tragic scenes the Kentucky widow could give 
her son no education. Thomas grew to manhood a 
muscular, resolute, ignorant man, rough in speech but 
possessed of a kind and sympathetic heart. He was the 
protector of his widowed mother until he was twenty- 
eight years old. Then in the year 1806 he was mar- 
ried to Nancy Hanks. She was a Virginian by birth, 
but her blood like her name was English with a strong 
infusion from the veins of the New England Puritan. 
It is difficult to write of the mother of our great Lin- 
coln without emotion. She was a beauty, forest-born, 
slight in person, a brunette with dark hair, soft 
hazel eyes, and a very musical voice. She was a 
woman of rare intellectual endowments, a strong 
will, and a most exemplary Christian character. In 
the ignorance and poverty of the infant settlement 
she had educated herself in all the duties of a fron- 
tier wife. A good old itinerant preacher had taught 
her to read and write and to draw comfort and in- 
spiration from the Book of Books. Instructed by 



LINCOLN'S MOTHER. 345 

him at the age of twenty-three, she was a Dorcas 
full of good works and alms-deeds which she did. 

Thomas Lincoln had no capacity for the accumu- 
lation of property and was infected with the nomadic 
spirit of the emigrant. In the forest of Hardin 
County, Ky., he built a log-cabin and thither carried 
his faithful wife with her slender outfit. There, on 
the 12th day of February, 1809, Abraham, their 
second child, was born. Even in that woodland soli- 
tude, where neighbors were few and scattered, Nancy 
Lincoln soon became celebrated. She taught other 
wives how to nurse the sick and to make their homes 
attractive to their husbands. Her log-cabin was 
no longer a cheerless, barn-like structure. Flowers 
blossomed around it, honeysuckles and vines climbed 
over it, and song-birds built their nests in its recesses. 
She was a model of wifely industry. No duty of the 
household was neglected. She had already taught 
her husband how to read arid write, and had brought 
his rather coarse nature under her gentle, refining in- 
fluence. With the birth of children a new sense of 
religious duty pervaded her soul. Her boy must 
know how to read and must be instructed in the Word 
of God. She gave him a daily lesson, while she was 
watched by an affectionate husband proud of his 
home, his wife, and his boy. 

This family circle was too happy to remain long 
unbroken. When her son was nine years old, Nancy 
Lincoln sickened and died, at the early age of thirty- 
five. Other boys in solitary homes who have loved 
and lost their mothers will know by their own expe- 
rience how desolate the life of young Lincoln was 
when his mother went out of it. What kindly heart 
will not beat more tenderly over the first recorded act 



346 , 2RS( - REMINISCENCES. 

of his life? The ; an s <*uds of neighbors had laid 
the mother to ro jlve l an fe u - ^ grave, with many 
tears but withoi made mm 1., 01 a prayer; for the 
nearest ministei n gton. I 1 tn dr<\d miles away. It 
grieved the heart i W depr^ ^j ia ^ i^jg m ust be. And 
so it comes to pass \ e ° ir first view of the mother- 
less boy shows him S l act of making use, perhaps 
for the first time, c ae art which his mother had 
taught him, in wri mg a letter to the travelling 
preacher whom she had known and esteemed, begging 
him to come and preach a sermon at her grave. 
Weeks later, riding a hundred miles through the 
pathless woods on horseback to reach the place, the 
preacher came. The father, daughter, and son, with 
the neighbors far and near, gathered in one of "God's 
first temples, " and there beneath a spreading sycamore 
the preacher told the story and enforced the lesson 
of the pure and gentle life of Nancy Lincoln. It 
was not strange that true heart loved her until his 
dying day ; that sitting in the Executive Mansion he 
should have said, " All that I am or hope to be I owe 
to my mother," or that when in his presence one 
spoke of strong sympathy with sorrow as a charac- 
teristic of the poor among the mountains, he replied, 
" I know from my own experience that it is just as 
strong in the forest and on the prairie." 

It was from his father that Abraham Lincoln de- 
rived his lofty stature, giant frame, iron muscles, and 
elastic step, his long, sinewy arms and might}' 
strength. His mother gave him his temperament, 
, melancholy yet not morose, his reverence for the 
word and works of God, and his sensitive conscience. 
The union of unlike parental forces invested him with 
a courage that knew no fear and a heart capacious 



LINTON'S BC '■■■'. 347 

enough for the sor rows f 9 His receptive na- 

ture, shut up in foi u js developed by as- 

sociation with men un 3d with a human 

sympathy which r^.ade ular leader and 

bound other men to him jks of steel. His 

lofty integrity, love of ju^ and hatred for all 

forms of tyranny and cruel* J ' 1 the same origin. 

By a second marriage, Wu' his son was eleven 
years old, his father brought 5 his cabin another 
noble woman. She was a widow with three children, 
but with true impartiality she became for the son of 
Nancy Lincoln a second devoted mother. How well 
he loved her was proved by the last visit he made be- 
fore leaving Springfield for Washington, in February, 
1861. It was paid to her. She was seized with the 
spirit of prophecy. She embraced and kissed him, 
predicted his death by violence, and said that in this 
world she should never see him again. 

It has been written by his biographers that the 
only books accessible to Lincoln in his youth were 
the Bible, "The Pilgrim's Progress," "The Poems 
of Burns," and " Weems' Life of Washington." No 
youth suffers any deprivation who has access to these 
volumes. Their influence upon young Lincoln was 
apparent in all his after-life. Except the instruc- 
tions of his mother, the Bible more powerfully con- 
trolled the intellectual development of the son than 
all other causes combined. He memorized many of 
its chapters and had them perfectly at his command. 
Early in his professional life he learned that the most 
useful of all books to the public speaker is the 
Bible. After 1857 he seldom made a speech which 
did not comprise quotations from the Bible. The 
poems of the Ayrshire ploughman developed his 



348 PER iCENCES. 

poetic fancy, Bum J dream taught him 

the force of figurat •, and the simple story 

of Parson Weems amiliar with the noble 

qualities of WashL t the poverty of his early 

life there were mai .vations, but the want of 

good books was not on. them. 

The step-mother and Jie father encouraged their 
son to make use of every opportunity to learn. One 
of his teachers remembers him as his most eager and 
diligent scholar, arrayed in a buckskin suit with a 
cap made from the skin of a raccoon, coming with a 
worn-out arithmetic in his hands to begin his stud- 
ies in the higher branches. But all the exertions of 
his parents could not give him a school attendance 
in all of more than a single year. 

There are stories of his school life which gave 
promise of his future eminence. He was slow to 
anger ; personal insult or ridicule could not provoke 
him, but no brute who attacked a weaker boy was 
safe from his punishment. Once he came upon six 
boys, each older than himself, who were drowning a 
kitten. He bounded upon them like a panther, and 
one after another the six went down under his blows. 
Then he released and fondled the poor kitten, and 
cried over it like a girl. He was ambitious to win a 
prize in a spelling-match. A poor girl was his only 
dangerous competitor. She hesitated over a letter 
which had she missed would have given the prize to 
Lincoln. Instantly he framed his lips into the form 
of the right letter; the blushing girl won the prize 
and the defeated boy was happy. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Abraham Lincoln (Continued) — His Failures — 
The Farm Laborer — The Flat-Boatman — 
The Fighter — The Merchant — The Sur- 
veyor. 

The temptation is strong to linger over many of 
the incidents of his youth, but I must touch only 
upon those which perceptively influenced his career. 
At the age of nineteen he made a voyage to New- 
Orleans on a flat-boat. Himself and the son of his 
employer constituted the officers and crew. On the 
voyage they were attacked by seven negroes who in- 
tended to capture the valuable cargo. Spurning all 
but the arms which nature had given him, Lincoln 
whipped the whole attacking party. 

In New Orleans an event occurred which has been 
much distorted in many Lincoln biographies. He 
there attended a slave auction and saw a picture, 
never in this republic to be exhibited again. It was 
a young colored woman who stood on the auction 
block to be sold. Her limbs and bosom were bare. 
Traders in human flesh felt the density of her mus- 
cles as if she had been a quadruped. No doubt the 
young Kentuckian was disgusted, but there is no 
proof that this was his first object-lesson in human 
slavery, or that, as so often has been asserted, he 
turned to his companion and said, " If I ever get a 
chance to hit slavery, I will hit it hard." Such an 

349 



350 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

expression from a flat-boatman would have been ab- 
surd. In its proper place I will give what his inti- 
mate friends suppose was the exhibition which con- 
verted him from an indifferent spectator of its horrors 
into a firm advocate of the abolition of slaver}-. 

Nor am I able to find any proof of another event, 
by many supposed to have occurred about this 
time. It has been said that his fortune was told by 
a Voudoo woman, who said he was divinely commis- 
sioned to destroy slavery, which would cease to exist 
within a few years after he became President. I have 
never met with any reliable evidence in support of 
this statement. 

After a second and uneventful voyage to New Or- 
leans he assisted his father, who now removed a third 
time, to build a new log-cabin and to clear and fence 
another farm. This was in the year 1831, when, if 
ever, he earned the title of " The Railsplitter." For 
the benefit of those who have written and who believe 
that Mr. Lincoln was proud of and frequently ad- 
verted to this title as evidence of his humble origin, 
it is proper to say that the story has so slight a basis 
of truth that it might almost be called apocryphal. 
I do not find that he ever referred to it but once. At 
the State Convention in 18G0, where he was to speak, 
two rails, adorned with banners and preceded by 
music, were brought into the hall. The declaration 
of the bearers that they were genuine created a wild 
enthusiasm. The statement that they were split by 
the hand of Lincoln made some reference to them 
necessary. It was made by Mr. Lincoln in these 
modest terms : 

"Fellow-citizens! It is true that many, many 
years ago John Hanks and I made rails down on the 



LINCOLN A COUNTRY MERCHANT. 351 

Sangamon. We made good, honest rails, but 
whether this is one of them, at this distance of time 
I am not able to say.'' 

At the age of twenty-two Abraham Lincoln had 
no trade or occupation. He had tried several experi- 
ments, all of which were failures. He had been a 
farm hand, a ferryman, a flat-boatman. Then for 
a few months he was clerk in a country store and a 
superintendent of a flouring mill. He enlisted in 
the Black Hawk war, and his election as captain of 
his company gave him the supreme pleasure of his 
life. The war was a short one. He purchased and 
operated the county store. In this business he failed 
and was sold out by the sheriff. Then he studied 
surveying and became a land surveyor. In this oc- 
cupation he did not succeed. His failure must have 
been complete, for his horse, his compass, and his in- 
struments were sold upon an execution by the sheriff. 
One Bolin Greene, almost a stranger, purchased and 
sent his horse, compass, and instruments to him with 
a kindly message to " pay for them when he was able." 

Incidents are related of what may be called the 
experimental period of Mr. Lincoln's life which de- 
serve to be recorded. It was while he was doing 
business as a merchant that a farmer's wife made 
purchases from him which required weighing and 
computation. She had departed for her home some 
miles away when, upon a revision of the transaction, 
Lincoln became satisfied that he had overcharged his 
customer some thirty cents. Some merchants would 
have waited until the customer complained before 
reopening the transaction. Not so Abraham Lin- 
coln. He walked the four miles, corrected the error, 
and then with a clear conscience went about his busi- 



352 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

ness. A new post-office was established and he was 
appointed postmaster. The income was so insignifi- 
cant that he was not called on to pay the amount due 
to the Government until some years later when he was 
established as a lawyer in Springfield. A friend, who 
thought it would be inconvenient for him to pay the 
money on so short a notice, went to him with an 
offer to advance it. To his friend's surprise Mr. 
Lincoln produced from the drawer of his desk a 
package containing the identical coins to which the 
department was entitled. He had been very poor 
during the intervening years, but never poor enough 
to use one penny of the money which belonged to the 
United States. 

We now touch the turning-point in Mr. Lincoln's 
career. The age of twenty-five is given by his 
biographer Mr. Arnold as the end of the unsuc- 
cessful portion of his life. Before this time he had 
failed in everything he had undertaken. But his 
life had not been altogether wasted. By the inflexi- 
ble integrity of all his dealings he had fairly earned 
the name of " Honest Abe Lincoln." He had learned 
how to be thorough. His studies of grammar and 
logic were eventually to make him a celebrity in 
the world of letters. Much of his hard work in the 
past was to become invaluable to him when, as his 
friends declared, his " luck had turned" and he began 
to travel the highway of success. 

An incident which exerted a powerful influence 
upon his professional success will close our sketch of 
the unsuccessful period of Abraham Lincoln's career. 
He was not a fighting man. But in those days a 
man of his stature would have been deemed a coward 
if he was not able to defend himself. He was the 



LINCOLN'S CONTEST WITH ARMSTRONG. 353 

tallest and the strongest man in the township and he 
necessarily became the champion of New Salem. 
The nearest village had the name of Clary's Grove. 
This village had a champion, a good-natured giant 
of a fellow, by name John Armstrong. 

The betting and bragging of the two villages over 
the merits of their respective champions had made 
it apparent that nothing but a fair, square fight would 
determine which was the better man. Personally 
the champions did not wish to fight, but the honor of 
their respective villages was involved and the con- 
test became inevitable. The combatants did not go 
into training like the athletes of the modern science 
of self-defence, but the excitement ran high and the 
villages backed their respective favorites with money 
as well as their clamorous opinions. Neutral ground 
was selected and the day named for the fight. It 
came off in the presence of a great multitude, com- 
prising the entire male population of the two villages. 
It was to be a rough-and-tumble combat, in which the 
first man who should " down" his adversary was to 
be the victor. There was but one rule. It was " no 
grasping or hitting below the belt, no weapons but 
those of nature." 

In the first round Armstrong grasped the body of 
his adversary and converted the contest into a wres- 
tling-match, in which he was supposed to be invinci- 
ble. Lincoln appeared to be dazed and to give his 
whole strength to an effort to maintain his upright 
position. Armstrong put forth all his strength; he 
moved him from right to left, forward and back- 
ward, tried very hard to trip him, but all his strug- 
gles were useless. The tall figure of Lincoln was 
moved in every direction, but he stood upright as 
23 



354 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

sturdy as an oak. The partisans of Armstrong yelled 
to him to make a rush, to down him before he could 
recover so as to make any attack. But he could not 
make any impression. Conscious of failure and over- 
whelmed by the clamor of his partisans, he grasped 
Lincoln far below the hips by what every one recog- 
nized as a foul attack. Even then he could not move 
him. Lincoln protested against the unfairness, but 
his protest was disregarded. Then for the first time 
he seemed to put forth his strength. His right arm 
shot out, his hand grappled Armstrong by the throat, 
broke his hold, and at the end of his extended arm 
shook him like a rat in the jaws of a terrier. The 
Clary's Grove boys saw that their champion was beat- 
en, and attempted to break into the ring to assist 
him. But honest Jack, in spite of the grasp on his 
throat, shouted "No! Abe Lincoln has whipped me, 
fair and square ! He is the best man that ever broke 
into this settlement, and if he will let up on me, the 
man that wants to whip him has first got to whip 
Armstrong." This manly expression ended the fight, 
to the satisfaction of both parties. 

After this fight Lincoln never wanted a home. 
The energetic wife of Armstrong became his good 
angel ; the children climbed upon his knees and kissed 
the sadness away from his melancholy face. I have 
sometimes thought that the fight with Armstrong 
may have been the turning-point in his career and 
that his success in life dates from its conclusion. 
At this time he was a vigorous man of about twenty- 
three years, not discouraged by his previous failures, 
although he was loaded with the debts he had in- 
curred as a country merchant and a surveyor. 

At the age of twenty-three he advocated the elec- 



END OF LINCOLN'S FAILURES. 355 

tion to the presidency of Henry Clay. He then served 
through the Black Hawk war, was nominated for 
the legislature and defeated. At the age of twenty- 
five he was again nominated and this time he was 
elected. He was re-elected in 183G, 1838, and 1840, 
and in the last year was the candidate of his party 
for speaker. In the spring of 1837, having been ad- 
mitted to the bar, he opened an office in Springfield 
with John T. Stuart as his partner, and notwithstand- 
ing the successful campaign in 1810 of "Tippecanoe 
and Tyler too," at its close he determined to withdraw 
from politics and devote himself to the practice of 
the law. We may therefore fix upon the year 1840 
as the end of his mistakes and misfortunes, though 
his real successes began at a somewhat earlier period. 




CHAPTER XXXIV. 

Abraham Lincoln (Continued) — His Successes 
— The Lawyer — The Advocate — The Popu- 
lar Man. 

The conspicuous element in the character of Mr. 
Lincoln was its intensity. The counsel of the 
preacher appears to have controlled his life. " What- 
soever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might," 
was for him not only a counsel, but a command. He 
studied grammar by committing the book to memory. 
A treatise on land-surveying fell into his hands by 
accident ; it made him a surveyor. That he might 
be certain of the meaning of the word " demonstra- 
tion," he solved the problems of Euclid. Although 
this intensity was the cause of much of his own un- 
happiness, we shall find in his later years that the 
English-speaking world is indebted to it for some of 
the gems of the language. 

It is said of him that he loved Ann Rutledge with 
\ all the capacity of his soul, and that she was worthy 
of such a mighty love. She possessed personal 
beauty, and what was of greater value to the rising 
lawyer, a calm, equable temper and excellent judg- 
ment. She appreciated Lincoln and returned his 
love. How far her refining influence would have 
modified the impetuosity of his character, we can ouly 
imagine. It seemed for a time that the course of 
their love did run smooth. With the approval of all 

356 



LINCOLN A LAWYER. 357 

their friends, who saw how well they were suited to 
each other, they were about to be married, when 
after a very short illness she died. His grief foi a 
time was uncontrollable. A tempest seemed to be 
raging within him. He sank into a kind of torpor 
from which it was difficult and dangerous to awake 
him. His friends feared for his sanity and his life. 
He rebelled against the injustice of the fate which 
had robbed him of a treasure which he valued more 
than life. Expressions which fell from him under 
the influence of this affliction have been treasured up 
in some memories and produced after his death as 
evidence of his disbelief in the Bible and his rejec- 
tion of all the doctrines of Christianity. 

"Without capital or influential friends ; impatient of 
a personal obligation which he could not discharge ; 
burdened with debts incurred during his brief career 
as a merchant, he now came to the young city of 
Springfield to try his fortune in the profession of the 
law. He created the conditions of his own success. 
An honest lawyer is a desirable member of any com- 
munity. The rugged integrity which had alreadj' 
given him a name speedily brought him clients, who 
knew that instead of promoting litigation he was a 
minister of peace who could be relied upon to give 
them good advice. In a new country, the ability to 
tell a good story goes far to secure what is called 
popularity. He cultivated his natural powers to this 
end, for the double purpose of diverting his hearers 
and occupying his own thoughts, until it made him 
celebrated. His popularity was as wide as his ac- 
quaintance. He had no rivals in his profession. 
Its members are quick to discover and appreciate one 
who is always just and honorable in his relations 



358 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

with them. He would not undertake an unjust cause. 
When he discovered that his client had deceived 
him he did not hesitate to abandon his case in open 
court. He was once prosecuting a claim for goods 
sold. He had proved every item by his own client, 
when, to his amazement, his adversary produced the 
written receipt of his client showing that every item 
had been paid for. He cross-examined the defendant 
far enough to make it clear that no explanation was 
possible, and then deliberately walked out of the 
court-room and over to the hotel. The judge, sup- 
posing that he had been called from the court for 
some purpose, sent a messenger for him to tell him 
that the court could not wait for him longer. " Tell 
his Honor that I cannot come," was the answer of 
the indignant lawyer ; " my hands are dirty and I am 
washing them." 

The most dramatic scene in his professional life, 
in which the advocate appears to the best advantage, 
was a trial for murder in which he showed his grati- 
tude to the wife of Jack Armstrong. Armstrong 
was dead. His son, a young man of twenty, im- 
patient of his mother's restraint and easily in- 
fluenced in the wrong direction, had become asso- 
ciated with a party of reckless young men, the leader 
of whom was a vicious and dangerous criminal. This 
leader had provoked a fight in the night at a camp- 
meeting, in which one of the opposing party had been 
killed by a blow from a slung-shot or some similar 
weapon, which was found at the place of the murder. 

To save himself, the leader charged the crime upon 
young Armstrong, and before the court of inquiry 
testified positively that he plainly saw him strike the 
fatal blow. 



LINCOLN DEFENDS YOUNG ARMSTRONG. 359 

Armstrong was held for trial on the charge of 
murder. The testimonj^ against him was positive. 
The murder was not only unprovoked, but the chief 
witness represented it as premeditated and vindic- 
tive. The public indignation increased. The coun- 
try newspapers provided their weekly accretions. 
Every boyish fight, every circumstance or fact 
which tended to show his unruly disposition, was 
seized upon, magnified and multiplied, until young 
Armstrong was made out to be a fierce, blood-thirsty 
miscreant to whom murder was a recreation. It be- 
came the prevailing opinion that public justice could 
not wait for the slow forms of law. It was decided 
to hang him without the unnecessary delay and ex- 
pense of a trial, and hung he would have been but 
for his secret and sudden removal by the sheriff to 
the jail in another county. 

The calamity fell heavily upon the prisoner's 
widowed mother. Upon the little farm, the only 
property left by her husband, she had been able, by 
industry and the strictest economy, to keep her chil- 
dren together. She was now to see her neighbors 
turn away when they met her and avoid her house 
as though it was infected. The wise conclusion of 
the public was that the boy had not been properly 
brought up; if he had been he would not have com- 
mitted the murder. Even the country attorney would 
not appear for her son unless she would mortgage 
her farm for his fees. 

Upon this dark scene suddenly appeared the stal- 
wart form of Lincoln. There is first a letter re- 
proaching her for not calling on him when she was 
in trouble and volunteering to defend her son. It is 
followed bj r Lincoln in person. In a half-hour's ex- 



360 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

amination he knows that the prisoner is innocent. 
Why cannot those who have great force of character 
always use it as he did? He went to the home of 
the sad widow and took her by the hand. 

" Hannah !" he said, " your boy is innocent. He 
shall be made as clear of this charge as the sun in 
yonder sky." 

It was like flooding her home with sunshine and 
filling her heart with joy. " I seemed to know then 
that my boy would be cleared," she said, " for Abram 
never deceived anybody." 

Fortunately we have excellent reports of the trial 
that followed. I cite only those portions which 
illustrate Lincoln, and one source of my information 
is the Cleveland Leader. According to that ac- 
count the prejudice against the accused was undi- 
minished. Lincoln alone appeared confident of an 
acquittal. It was difficult to say which was the 
saddest face — that of the young man bleached by his 
imprisonment, appalled by constant fears of lynch- 
ing, with a reckless enemy who was to swear his in- 
nocent life away, or the poor, pale, widowed mother 
whose son was to be tried for his life with every 
opinion settled in favor of his guilt. On one thing 
mother and son were agreed. Their only hope was 
in the tall, dark-faced man in whose deep-set eyes 
they read the message of hope and courage. 

Of the six hundred people in the court-house, Lin- 
coln appeared the most unconcerned. He had 
selected a young attorney to assist him, to whom all 
the preliminary work of the trial was intrusted. 
Lincoln seemed to take but little interest in the im- 
portant work of selecting a jury. He sat by the 
table, his head resting upon his open hand, drawing 



LINCOLN DEFENDS YOUNG ARMSTRONG. 361 

portraits with a pencil. He interfered but once. A 
juror said he had not onty formed an opinion, but he 
had said many times, what he believed, that Arm- 
strong was guilty. Assuming that he would be ex- 
cused, he was about leaving the box, when Lincoln 
arose. His tall form towered above the audience. 
" Was your father a justice of the peace down on the 
Sangamon?" he asked. The juror replied that he 
was. " We decline to excuse the juror," said Lin- 
coln. " He is a fair man who will not go against his 
judgment," and this was the only interference with 
the selection of the jury. 

The prosecuting attorney made a plain statement 
of a very simple case. He proved by reliable wit- 
nesses that two parties were engaged in the fight ; 
that Armstrong belonged to one of them ; that after 
it was over one man lay dead on the ground, his 
skull fractured, apparently by a slung-shot that lay 
near him; that some one said, "I saw Armstrong 
hit him ;" that Armstrong appeared to be confused, 
but claimed that he did not hit the man; that as 
soon as he saw there was to be a fight he retreated, 
and was some distance away when he heard that a 
man had been killed. These witnesses were scarcely 
cross-examined. They were asked a few questions 
about the time of the melee and dismissed. Thej 7- 
agreed about the time, which was also fixed by one of 
the regular exercises of the camp-meeting. 

There was silence in the crowded court as the 
principal witness was sworn. He was a low-browed 
man of thirty with a hard, merciless face. His story 
was brief, but if true it was fatal. He had been in 
the company with Armstrong. The bottle had cir- 
culated freely. Armstrong was talkative. Said he 



362 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

would " do up" the man who was killed. He was 
outside the crowd during the melee. He saw Arm- 
strong swing the shot, strike the head of his victim, 
who fell to the ground and never rose again. Asked 
how he could be so positive when the occurrence was 
in the evening, he said the parties stood in range be- 
tAveen him and the full moon, which made the place 
almost as light as day. The moon had been a con- 
spicuous figure in all his relations of the transaction. 

" There has been bad blood and ill-feeling between 
Armstrong and yourself, has there not?" 

"None whatever," the witness answered. 

To the amazement of the counsel, court, and spec- 
tators, Lincoln dismissed the witness without another 
question. He knew better than to cross-examine a 
hostile witness. 

The prosecution rested. Lincoln waived his open- 
ing argument and called four reputable, substantial 
farmers, the nearest neighbors, who had known Arm- 
strong all his life. They all testified that although 
Armstrong was rather wild and irrepressible, he had 
never been charged with a wicked or malicious act. 

"Why," said one, "he's Jack Armstrong's own 
boy. He's got no malice into him. He would share 
his last cent with anybody that wa's in want, and if 
he was cold would take off his coat and give it to 
him." The same witnesses proved that the worst 
enemy the prisoner had was the chief witness, who 
had often been heard to threaten him with violence. 

"That," said Lincoln, "is our case." 

Amazement filled the court. What could Lincoln 
be thinking of? The rope was tightening around 
the prisoner's neck. In the face of the positive, un- 
contradicted evidence, escape was impossible. Why 



THE TRIAL OF YOUNG ARMSTRONG. 363 

did lie not call the prisoner to deny the charge, or 
the mother to show the peaceable temper of the boy? 
He might at least have appealed to the sympathies 
of the jury. He had thrown away the boy's last 
chance of life. Thoughts like these pervaded all 
minds. The face of the widowed mother wore an 
expression of hopeless despair. 

Lincoln saw it and it went to his heart. The 
court, for the moment, had suspended the trial. 
With grave courtesy the lawyer bent over the figure 
of the poor woman, offered her his arm and led her 
to an open window. Pointing to the sun, which had 
just passed the meridian, he whispered in her ear, 
" Hannah ! before that sun sets your boy will be free !" 

" O Abram ! Abram ! God bless you for those 
words! I don't see nor I don't ask how it can be. 
But I will hope, for you, Abram, I know would not 
deceive me !" 

The prosecutor supposed he had a clear case. 
Upon the evidence the jury would have to convict. 
There was nothing to argue. Until some defence 
was suggested he said he would not occupy the time 
of the jury. 

Every sound was hushed as Lincoln rose to plead 
for the prisoner. He went straight to the merits of 
the case. A few well-chosen words made every juror 
see that the whole case rested on the evidence of the 
principal witness — except that there was not a shred 
of proof of guilt. But for that, the prisoner was 
shown to be a generous, good-hearted boy. Reject 
that, and the jury must not only acquit, they must 
vindicate the prisoner. There was just enough of this 
to enable the advocate to rise to the command of the 
situation. 



364 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

Then he began to describe the perjurer, calling on 
Almighty God to see him swear away the life of his 
associate, his friend. He showed how easy it was 
for an honest witness in the night time, in a crowd 
of angry men, to be mistaken ; he referred to instances 
of innocent men condemned upon such uncertain 
evidence. Then when he had secured the close at- 
tention of every juror, when even the judge was 
leaning forward with his open hand to his ear to 
catch every word, he turned, extended his long arm 
and ringer straight toward the witness, and in the 
sharp tones of a voice that pierced like a sword ex- 
claimed : " But he cannot be mistaken ; he is, he is 
sharp-eyed; he can see in the dark; he has the gift 
of second-sight. He saw, as he told you, the fatal 
blow struck, by the light of the moon, of the full 
moon — two long hours before it rose above the 
eastern horizon. Look for yourselves, gentlemen, " 
he said, as he handed to the foreman the Almanac 
and Register in common use in that locality. 

The change of opinion was electric. There was 
no doubt about the time when the blow was struck. 
Not guilty, was the thought in every heart. But the 
scene had not yet passed. In almost plaintive tones 
he described the home of his old friend, the boy's 
father ; its open doors to him when he was a sad and 
lonely man ; the boy that had climbed upon his knee 
and laid his curly head upon his shoulder ; the bright- 
faced wife, almost a mother to him. " There she sits, 
gentlemen, a sad -faced, white-haired widow, await- 
ing your verdict which shall restore to her arms her 
son falsel} 7 accused. 

" And the perjured accuser, what of him ?" As well 
attempt to describe the flashes of lightning and the 



LINCOLN'S PECULIARITIES. 365 

thunder-roll of the storm as to gather the burning 
words of scorn, invective, and crushing denunciation 
that fell from the lips of the eloquent advocate. It 
overwhelmed the witness with its terrible force. 
Human nature could not endure it. Ghastly with 
terror, his limbs trembling under him as he rose, he 
reeled toward the door, followed by that fearful ringer, 
and almost sank to the floor when he was passing the 
prisoner, and the lawyer fiercely demanded : " Which 
of the two is the murderer?" 

A swift acquittal followed. The widow fainted in 
the arms of her son. The applause that shook the 
building, the flight of the felon were witnesses of the 
power of the orator. The grateful woman undertook 
to explain how, and how soon, she could pay the 
lawyer's fee. Again he led her to the window and 
said, " The day is not yet ended and your son is free. 
I shall not charge you one cent, Hannah. Give me 
credit for what I have done on the debt I have owed 
you these many years." 

To describe the man Lincoln, rather than to mul- 
tiply anecdotes of him, I cannot do better than to 
give an account of him at this period of his life 
written by one of his contemporaries. At this time, 
he writes, the terms of court were held quarterly and 
usually lasted about two weeks. The terms were 
always seasons of great importance and much gayety 
in the little town that had the honor of being the 
county seat. Distinguished members of the bar from 
surrounding and even from distant counties, ex- 
judges and ex-members of Congress attended, and 
were personally, and many of them popularly, known 
to almost every adult, male and female, of the 
limited population. They came in by stages and on 



366 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

horseback. Among them, the one above all whose 
arrival was looked forward to with the most pleasur- 
able anticipations, and whose possible absence — al- 
though he never was absent — was feared with the 
liveliest emotions of anxiety, was "Uncle Abe," as 
we all lovingly called him. Sometimes he was a day 
or two late, and then, as the Bloomington stage 
came in at sundown, the bench and bar, jurors and 
citizens, would gather in crowds at the hotel where 
he alwa3 r s put up, to give him a welcome if he should 
happily arrive, and to experience the keenest disap- 
pointment if he should not. If he arrived, as he 
alighted and stretched out both his long arms to 
shake hands with those nearest to him and with 
those who approached, his homely face, handsome 
in its broad and sunny smile, his voice touching in 
its kindly and cheerful accents, every one in his 
presence felt lighter and joyous in his heart. He 
brought happiness with him. He loved his fellow- 
men with all the strength of his great nature, and 
those who came in contact with him could not help 
reciprocating his love. His tenderness of the feel- 
ings of others was the extreme of sensitiveness. 

I have written enough to serve my purpose. He was 
now established in his profession as its unquestioned 
leader. He had neither enemies nor rivals. He 
was the universal associate, counsellor, adviser, and 
friend. At this period in his career Abraham Lincoln 
was pre-eminently and for the first time a success- 
ful man. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

Abraham Lincoln (Continued) — The Orator — 
The Candidate — The Man op the People. 

In the famous campaign of "Tippecanoe and Tyler 
too," of 1840, Mr. Lincoln advocated the election of 
Gen. W. H. Harrison, the successful candidate. In 
1844 he was an earnest supporter of Henry Clay 
and was intensely disappointed by his defeat. In 
1846 he was elected to the lower house of Congress 
and re-elected in 1848. He declined a re-election to 
Congress for the third time, and in 1850 returned to 
the practice of his profession. 

He was influential in the legislature and politics of 
Illinois, an industrious and by no means a silent 
member of Congress. But when, in 1849, he declined 
a re-election to the House of Representatives and re- 
turned to his private and professional life, he had 
done almost nothing to make himself known outside 
of his State or to prove his superiority to many of his 
contemporaries. Had his life closed at the age of 
forty-five he would have left to his children a fair 
reputation, but the credit of no act which would have 
given him a place in history. 

But in the year 1858, when he was past middle 
age, he suddenly rose above the political horizon and 
so challenged the public attention that he was taken 
out of private life and, without any intervening step, 
placed at the head of a great republic. Such an in- 

367 



368 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

stance is almost without a parallel. I do not re- 
member that it had happened to a really strong man 
since the days of Cincinnatus. I think we shall find 
its cause in the most significant event of Mr. Lin- 
coln's career. 

If I were attempting to write a biography, or even 
a connected account of his life, there are incidents in 
it which it would be necessary to describe but which 
are unimportant to my present purpose. Among 
these are his threatened duel with General Shields, 
his courtship and marriage, and several of his achieve- 
ments in his profession. He appears to have had 
some skill as an inventor, and he took out letters 
patent for an invention to assist in the navigation of 
steamboats over rapids and shallows. But it cannot 
be said that any experience of his, earlier than 1858, 
had any special influence in his preparation for his 
subsequent career. 

The decade which ended in 1858 covered the first 
aggressive campaign of the slave power. The old 
slave States had been content to abide by the com- 
promises arranged from time to time, especially the 
Missouri compromise line, and had not attempted to 
extend slavery beyond it. But after slavery had 
secured the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, dur- 
ing the Kansas controversy, its advocates arrogantly 
demanded the right to enter free territoiy with their 
slaves, in direct violation of the compact. The de- 
cision of the Supreme Court of the United States in 
the Died Scott case gave to the institution almost all 
its demands. On the other hand, the friends of free- 
dom had never claimed any right to interfere with 
slavery in the slave States or south of the compro- 
mise line. To that extent they conceded that the in- 



HIS STUDY OF SLAVERY. 369 

stitution was intrenched in the Constitution as a 
permanent evil. The most extreme abolitionists had 
limited their efforts to the abolition of slavery in the 
District of Columbia and its exclusion from the Ter- 
ritories. No public man had ventured to attack it 
within its consecrated limits. Had its votaries been 
content to abide by the line to which they had once 
for a good consideration agreed, their institution 
would have never been disturbed except by them- 
selves. 

Mr. Lincoln by hard study had become a master of 
the art of profound thought. He knew the value of 
intellectual work and of facts irrespective of the 
source from which they were derived. We know 
that the great conclusions of his later life were 
reached by his own processes, without much assist- 
ance from others. We have an example of these 
processes in his first inaugural address, which he 
composed with no assistance beyond a copy of the 
Federal Constitution and a speech of Henry Cla} T 's. 

The advocates of slavery had committed the grave 
error of forcing its pretensions upon such minds as 
that of Mr. Lincoln. They had been successful in 
extorting new concessions from the people of the 
free States. Instead of appreciating that there was 
a point be} T ond which concession could not go, the3 r 
made every success the pretext for a new aggression, 
until the halls of Congress became the theatre of a 
contest which annually became more angry and 
violent. 

The subject being thus forced upon his attention 
before he left Congress, Mr. Lincoln saw in it an 
issue which touched the national life. When he re- 
turned to private life he became a close observer of 



370 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

the aggressions of slavery, never more extreme 
than from 1850 to 1857. He gave to the study of 
the subject in all its bearings all the strength of his 
powerful intellect. God made him a lover of justice, 
humanity, and freedom ; an enemy, but a fair one, of 
the institution of human slavery. There is a letter 
written by him, August 24th, 1855, to his friend 
Joshua Speed, which reflects like a mirror the con- 
dition of his mind. He calls his friend's attention to 
a trip which they made together on a steamboat from 
Louisville to St. Louis in 1841. "There were on 
board ten or a dozen slaves shackled together with 
irons. That sight was a continual torment to me. I 
see something like it every time I touch the Ohio or 
any other slave bordei . " He disliked slavery because 
it appeared to be ci uel, oppressive, debasing to both 
master and slave. He loved freedom because it 
elevated the human ^ace. It was the natural right 
of man, ordained \' L he Almighty and certain to 
triumph in his own good time. 

But for the time his clear eye saw, and he knew in 
the depths of his soul, that freedom was fighting a 
losing battle. For years a solid South had stood 
like a rock demanding new concessions and in the 
end securing them from a divided North. Victori- 
ous in every skirmish, slavery was growing stronger, 
freedom weaker. A few more victories and slavery 
would be strong enough for the final struggle in 
which defeat would make ours a slave republic. 
After years of study he knew beyond a doubt where 
his party had erred, and he had wrought out in his 
own mind the lines upon which the battle for free- 
dom could be won. 

A mind accustomed to work out great problems 



HIS STUDY OF SLAVERY. 371 

unassisted becomes unconsciously secretive. It was 
more than a habit with Mr. Lincoln which con- 
strained him, in the later years of his life, to study a 
subject in all its aspects and all its possible con- 
sequences ; to solve all his doubts and reach all his 
conclusions, before he consulted or communicated 
with others. Aside from two letters, there was very 
little evidence that he was paying any attention to 
the subject of slavery for the first six years after 
he retired from Congress. But it is now known to 
those with whom he conversed freely, at the time 
the proclamation of emancipation was under consider- 
ation, that during these years he was a close observer 
of events, and that no fact or circumstance connected 
with the forward movement of the slave power es- 
caped his notice. His famf 7 rity with its details 
was remarked by every one . ith whom he talked 
on the subject. From the ?;s. T ,fication of the treaty 
by which we acquired so larg ' a part of Mexico, his 
memory was an encyclopedia of the facts of sla- 
very in America. 

I dwell upon this subject because I believe that 
Abraham Lincoln's greatest work for freedom was 
done long before he was elected President and at the 
very outset of his career as a statesman. It was that 
work which made him President. For the first time in 
our republic it put the controversy between human 
slavery and freedom upon its true ground, and 
launched against the peculiar institution the bolt of 
death. 

In the first half of the year 1858 the Republicans 
of Illinois had by common consent determined that 
Mr. Lincoln should be their candidate for the Senate 
Of the United States. In March, 1857, when Mr, 



372 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

Buchanan was inaugurated, the fight for Kansas had 
almost reached the point of civil war. The Dred 
Scott decision, which virtually held the Missouri 
Compromise to be unconstitutional, was heralded by 
the slave power as decisive of the controversy. The 
trick of the Lecompton constitution was devised in 
the autumn. It submitted only a schedule on the 
subject of slavery to the people, so arranged that 
ever}' vote, whether for or against the schedule, was 
a vote for slavery. Judge Douglas, whose senatorial 
term was about to expire, was a candidate for re- 
election. He had maintained, as the Dred Scott case 
held, that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitu- 
tional, but he would not defend the Lecompton fraud. 

In announcing his hostility to the Lecompton con- 
stitution, Judge Douglas had declared that " he did 
not care whether slavery was voted up or voted 
down." His opposition to that fraud had made a 
split in his own party, and there were many Repub- 
licans who were in favor of returning him to the 
Senate, unopposed. This fact made him a most 
formidable candidate against any republican nominee 
and presented to the party a strong inducement not 
to make the abstract issue with slaver} 7 prominent in 
the campaign. Any other candidate than Mr. Lin- 
coln would have temporized and treated slavery with 
extreme reserve. 

As his habit was upon all occasions of importance, 
Mr. Lincoln made careful preparation for the nomi- 
nating convention. To the body of Republicans 
who were to meet at Springfield on the 17th of June, 
1858, he intended to give the results of ten years' 
careful study and observation of the political influence 
of slavery upon the republic. He well knew the 






THE "DIVIDED HOUSE" SPEECH. 373 

force of words, and he selected those in which his con- 
clusions should be announced. When the nomina- 
tion was tendered to him, he accepted it in what has 
since come to be known as the " Divided House" 
speech, the most important of his life, possibly the 
most important in its consequences ever delivered in 
the republic, for it was the first which accurately 
stated the future of the struggle between freedom 
and slavery. He took his stand upon the great fact 
declared by our Saviour to the Scribes which came 
down from Jerusalem, " If a house be divided against 
itself that house cannot stand, " and declared his own 
faith that "' this Government cannot permanently en- 
dure half slave and half free." 

The unexpected announcement of this bold predic- 
tion almost convulsed the Republican party. It came 
upon Mr. Lincoln's* supporters like thunder from a 
cloudless sky . The leaders of the party were appalled . 
They declared that he had invited defeat; that he 
had destroyed his party ; that he had made the issue 
one of life or death. They pressed him to explain or 
modify his statement so that it should not amount 
to a declaration of war against slavery, provided its 
advocates would restrict it within the limits to which 
they had once consented. But Mr. Lincoln scorned 
all subterfuge. He said that the statement that 
slavery could not exist unless it was aggressive was 
a fact proved by all human experience within the 
historic period. He said : " I had rather have this 
fact made prominent and discussed before the people 
at the cost of my defeat than to suppress it and 
secure my election. By it I will stand or fall." 

What followed is familiar history. Judge Doug- 
las seized the opportunity to show that the views of 



374 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

Mr. Lincoln were more extreme and dangerous than 
those of the abolitionists ; that they involved a war 
to the death with slavery. Mr. Lincoln did not 
flinch from their defence. He challenged his ad- 
versary to a public discussion. His challenge was 
accepted, and the debate instead of destroying the Re- 
publican party drew to it a majority of the voters of 
Illinois, and made Abraham Lincoln, although de- 
feated by the legislature, the most conspicuous of its 
leaders. 

There has never been in American history such a 
debate before the people as that of 1858 between Lin- 
coln and Douglas. Both were great men, great 
enough to appreciate and respect each other. Its in- 
fluence has not yet passed away. Not long after the 
Springfield convention, Mr. Douglas returned to 
Chicago, where he made a speech which was regarded 
as the supreme effort of his life. I have had an ac- 
count of it from an intelligent gentleman who was 
one of the audience. Judge Douglas spoke of Mr. 
Lincoln as an amiable and good-hearted man, rather 
out of place in politics, and then proceeded with his 
argument in a tone of almost offensive superiority. 
Mr. Lincoln, who was present when Judge Douglas 
closed, was called on for a speech. He replied that 
the hour was late, too late for any reply to the great 
argument of Judge Douglas. But if the audience 
cared to come to the same place the following even- 
ing he would reply to Judge Douglas, and especially 
to his severe strictures upon the statement that this 
Government could not permanently endure half slave 
and half free. He would also answer his commen- 
dations of popular, or, as it used to be called, " squat- 
ter sovereignty." 



HIS REPLY TO SENATOR DOUGLAS. 375 

The promised speech was delivered in the presence 
of a great audience. Like all his public addresses 
after June 17th, 1858, it was a great speech. Judge 
Douglas had charged him with making a carefully 
prepared address in favor of inviting the South to 
make war upon the North for the purpose of nation- 
alizing slavery. He had reminded him that the Gov- 
ernment had endured, half slave and half free, for 
more than eighty years, and that there was no reason 
why it should not endure in future ! 

In answer to the charge that his speech was pre- 
pared, Mr. Lincoln said : " I admit that it was. I 
am not a master of language ; I have not a fine educa- 
tion ; I am not capable of entering into a disquisition 
upon dialectics, as I believe you call it ; but I do not 
believe my language bears any such construction as 
Judge Douglas puts upon it. 

" He says I am in favor of making war by the 
North upon the South for the extinction of slavery ; 
that I am also in favor of inviting (as he expresses 
it) the South to a war upon the North, for the pur- 
pose of nationalizing slavery. Now, it is singular 
enough, if you will carefully read that passage over, 
that I did not say that I was in favor of anything in 
it ; I only said what I expected would take place. I 
made a prediction only. It may have been a foolish 
one, perhaps. I did not even say that I desired that 
slavery should be put in the course of ultimate ex- 
tinction. / do say so now, however, so there need 
be no longer any difficulty about that." 

Mr. Lincoln then announced another great truth. 
It was so self-evident that it is singular that it had 
not been announced and understood before. He 
said: " I am not, in the first place, unaware that this 



37 G PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

Government has endured eighty-two years half slave 
and half free. I know that. I am tolerably well 
acquainted with the history of the country, and I 
know that it has endured eighty-two years half slave 
and half free. I believe — and that is what I meant 
to allude to there — I believe it has endured because, 
during all Unit time, until the introduction of the 
Nebraska Bill, the public mind did rest in the 

BELIEF THAT SLAVERY WAS IN THE COURSE OF ULTI- 
MATE extinction. That was what gave us the rest 
that we had through that period of eighty-two years ; 
at least I so believe. I have always hated slavery, 
1 think, as much as any abolitionist. I have been 
an old-time Whig. I have always hated it, but 
I liave always been quiet about it until th is new era 
of tJtc introduction of the Nebraska Bill began, be- 
cause I believed that slavery was in the course of final 
extinction." 

The italics are my own. This speech was a sup- 
plement to the speech of June 17th. Together they 
form the basis of Mr. Lincoln's platform in the great 
discussion. Slavery had been universally supposed 
to be in the course of extinction. It had changed 
front. It now claimed extension into the Territories 
and recognition in the free States as constitutional 
rights. These pretensions had been to a large extent 
sanctioned by the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott 
case. They had precipitated an irrepressible conflict 
for the control of the Government upon the single 
issue of the right or wrong of slavery. If slavery 
was just and right, then Judge Douglas ought to be 
sustained. If it was unjust and wrong, he ought to 
be voted down. This view of the situation, the re- 
sult of long and careful study by a powerful intellect, 



THE DEBATE WITH DOUGLAS. 377 

touched the life of the republic. In comparison with 
it the success of candidates appeared to him insignifi- 
cant and contemptible. He compelled his adver- 
sary to assume the defence of the institution on the 
ground that it was just and right and not incon- 
sistent with the theory of a free republican govern- 
ment. 

Senator Douglas was a statesman of great ability, 
quick of apprehension and adroit in argument. He 
had had great experience in debate, in which he had 
never before encountered his superior. Mr. Lincoln's 
equipment was his clear conception of the subject, ac- 
quired by study and profound thought operating upon 
a mind intolerant of every form of wrong and injus- 
tice. They were worthy adversaries and they sin- 
cerely respected each other. 

The student will find no chapter in American his- 
tory which he will read with greater profit than the 
story of this debate. It illustrates the value of prep- 
aration in all public discussions. There are many 
who measure the ability of a speaker by his readiness 
and facility of speech upon all subjects and all oc- 
casions. Such men may be brilliant, but they are 
always superficial. There was great force in an ob- 
servation attributed to the celebrated Dr. Nott, of 
Union College, Schenectady. He said that " he did 
not so much object to extemporary speaking as he 
did to extemporary thinking." There was no ex- 
temporary thought or speech on the part of Mr. Lin- 
coln in this debate. It was instructive as well as 
entertaining. It furnished to its auditors material 
for thought. It drew crowds of plain citizens, which 
increased at every session and were largest at the 
close. Its study even now is an intellectual feast. 



378 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

In it Mr. Lincoln always appears as the leader. He 
held his adversary inflexibly to the issue of the right 
or wrong of slavery. He represented freedom as 
noble, merciful, just, and true ; he held slavery up to 
public reprobation in words of burning eloquence as 
cruel, brutal, unjust, and inhuman, and the people 
cried, "Amen." 

Mr. Lincoln was defeated as a candidate for the 
Senate and Judge Douglas was elected. But this now 
famous debate had consequences of infinitely greater 
moment than the election of a Senator. It not only 
drew to Mr. Lincoln the support of a majority of the 
voters of Illinois ; it marked out the lines upon which 
the future battle of slavery against freedom was to 
be fought. It established his title to the leadership 
of the army of freedom, as the most powerful and 
acceptable public speaker of his time. The people 
came to respect him as a statesman ; to love him as 
one of themselves. Henceforth, wherever he was to 
be announced as a speaker, multitudes were to listen 
to him as the champion of freedom, the great orator 
of his time. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

Abraham Lincoln (Continued) — His Election 
— His Preparation and his Promises. 

The debate with Senator Douglas closed at Alton, 
111., on the 15th of October, 1858. Mr. Lincoln had 
made (including those in the debate) more than fifty 
speeches in the campaign. The first was unanswer- 
able, and every successive speech appeared to be more 
convincing and powerful than its predecessor. Their 
strength was in their simplicity. Their conclusions 
were soon to be condensed into the platform of a 
national Republican party. 

In the early autumn of the following year, 1859, 
the contest was transferred to Ohio, where the Demo- 
crats had nominated Mr. Pugh as their candidate 
for governor, and Senator Douglas had been secured 
to advocate his election. The Ohio Republicans sent 
to Mr. Lincoln the Macedonian cry, "Come over 
and help us !" 

He came; he made two speeches, the first at 
Columbus, the other at Cincinnati. The speech at 
Columbus was a review. It concerned the past and 
the present. It exposed the insidious dangers of Mr. 
Douglas' favorite doctrine of Popular Sovereignty, 
and the exposure destroyed it. He showed how the 
Democratic doctrines were changing the negro from 
a man into an animal. " You are prepared," he said 
to the Democrats, " to deal with the negro as with 

379 



380 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

the brute. One or two more turns of the screw and 
you will support or submit to the slave trade, revived 
with all its horrors ; a slave code enforced in our Ter- 
ritories ; a new Dred Scott decision to bring slavery 
into the very heart of the free North." 

At Cincinnati, after announcing to the Democrats 
that they might be beaten in the next presidential 
campaign with Mr. Douglas as their candidate, but 
they must take him, for under any other candidate 
they would inevitably be defeated, he outlined the 
Republican platform of the future. The reader will 
not fail to note the modesty, simplicity, and the 
power of his words : " In order to beat our opponents, 
I think we want and must have a national policy in 
regard to the institution of slavery, that acknowl- 
edges and deals with that institution as being 
wrong." "We must not interfere with slavery in 
the States where it exists, because the Constitution 
forbids it, and the general welfare does not require 
us to do so. We must not withhold an efficient 
fugitive slave law, because the Constitution requires 
us (as I understand it) not to withhold such a law. 
But ive must prevent the outspreading of the in- 
stitution because neither the Constitution nor the 
general welfare requires us to extend it. We must 
prevent the revival of the African slave trade and 
the enacting by Congress of a territorial slave 
code. We must prevent each of these things being 
done by either Congresses or courts. The people of 
these United States are the rightful masters of both 
Congresses and courts, not to overthrow the Consti- 
tution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the 
Constitution." 

" To do these things we must employ instrumen- 



LINCOLN IN KANSAS AND IN THE EAST. 381 

talities. We must hold conventions ; we must adopt 
platforms ; we must nominate candidates ; we must 
carry elections. In all these things, I think, we 
ought to keep in view our real purpose, and in none 
do anything that stands adverse to our purpose." 

The telegraph carried the Ohio speeches to Kansas. 
They were answered by an invitation of the people 
to visit the new State, and a desire to see the man 
upon whom the people looked as the finisher, if not 
the author of their faith. He accepted their invita- 
tion. His journey through the young commonwealth 
was an unbroken procession. On foot, on horseback, 
in carriages and improvised vehicles, from distant 
farms the people came. Aged grandsire, sturdy 
boy, sunburned youth, blushing school-girl, maid 
and matron, united their voices in a continuous song 
of popular approval of the man who had done so 
much to make Kansas prosperous and free. 

Meantime his fame had travelled eastward. For- 
tunately for the country he came to deliver an address 
in the great hall of the Cooper Institute in New 
York, in February, 1860. The hearts of the invita- 
tion committee sank in their bosoms when an awk- 
ward, ill-dressed, unassuming man announced him- 
self as Abraham Lincoln, and expressed his doubts 
whether he could say anything to interest the people 
of a great city. A Sunday intervened. He went to 
hear Mr. Beecher. After the sermon the preacher 
introduced him to leading members of his congrega- 
tion, who made swift discovery that he was no or- 
dinary man. 

There was magic enough in his name to fill the 
Cooper Institute with eager listeners. Bryant, the 
great poet, presided. Mr. Lincoln's address was long 



382 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

and it had none of the stirring eloquence of aboli- 
tionists of the Wendell Phillips school. It had little 
of the expected Western humor — it was profoundly 
argumentative. But the approval of the audience 
was unanimous and enthusiastic, and the most com- 
petent critics promptly pronounced it the most 
powerful contribution ever made to the literature of 
the slave question, and recognized the fact that it 
was the production of a great orator, competent to 
lead the army of freedom in a contest for the control 
of the republic. 

Invitations to the New England cities were nu- 
merous from those who knew that he would touch 
the conscience of his hearers with the fire of his own 
enthusiasm. His lecture course was brief, his 
lectures four in number, but each one left a delighted 
audience and an ineffaceable impression upon the 
popular mind. 

It is practically demonstrable that the speech in 
the Cooper Institute made Mr. Lincoln President of 
the United States. The Republican National Con- 
vention was held at Chicago on the lGth of May, 18G0. 
Mr. Seward was the strongest candidate; Governor 
Chase, Mr. Cameron, and Judge Bates, of Missouri, 
each had their friends. But for the impression made 
by Mr. Lincoln's addresses in the East, the delegates 
from New York and New England would have unani- 
mously supported Mr. Seward to the end. As it was, 
Mr. Seward would have been nominated if the vote 
had been taken immediately on the adoption of the 
platform. It was not, and the dela} T to him was fatal. 

The balloting began on the morning of Friday, the 
18th. No man ever surpassed Mr. Lincoln in the 
warm attachment of his friends. The delegation from 



HIS NOMINATION. 383 

Illinois was solid and prepared to do anything hon- 
orable for their candidate. Knowing how closely 
he was in touch with the popular heart, it was said 
that they had packed the galleries with men who 
were to lead the applause for him. If this work was 
done it was superfluous. The delegates were touched 
with an enthusiasm for Lincoln that was infectious. 
There were four hundred and sixty-five votes in the 
convention, of which on the first ballot Mr. Seward 
received 1734- and Mr. Lincoln 102. On the sec- 
ond ballot, Vermont, as she has done on many 
other occasions, led the triumphal march. Her 
delegates had voted for Mr. Collamer on the first 
ballot. The chairman, when Vermont was called on 
the second, announced her " ten votes for Abraham 
Lincoln." On this ballot Mr. Lincoln's vote was one 
hundred and eighty-one, or only three and a half votes 
less than Mr. Seward's one hundred and eighty-four 
and one half. On the third ballot Mr. Lincoln came 
within two of a majority. Before the vote was an- 
nounced Mr. Carter, of Ohio, announced a change in 
the delegation from that State of four votes to Mr. 
Lincoln, which gave him the nomination. 

Success in a national convention is always an- 
nounced with applause. But no candidate was ever 
greeted with more vociferous evidences of approval 
than Mr. Lincoln. The ringing cheers of the dele- 
gates and the spectators, the shouts of the greater 
multitude in the streets, the music of many bands, 
the firing of cannon, created an uproar which delayed 
the announcement of the vote. On the final count 
there were three hundred and fifty-four votes for Mr. 
Lincoln. On motion of Mr. Evarts, the tried friend 
of Mr. Seward, the nomination was made unani- 



384 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

mous ; the convention took a recess until the after- 
noon, when the work of the convention was completed 
by the nomination of Mr. Hamlin for the second place 
on the ticket. 

No one who took an active part in the campaign 
could have doubted the affection of the people for 
Mr. Lincoln or the wisdom of his nomination. 
The people are quick to discover in a candidate the 
qualities they value. Abraham Lincoln was no 
stranger in any section of the free States. As I 
have elsewhere written, " His name was an inspira- 
tion. • It was everywhere the same. In the crowded 
city or at the country cross-roads ; up in the moun- 
tain hamlets or out on the Western prairies ; among 
the fishermen of the Atlantic and the miners of the 
Pacific coast, the political orator was heard with 
quiet consideration until he spoke the name of Lin- 
coln. At that name, cheers such as never welcomed 
king or conqueror supplied his peroration." His un- 
soiled integrity ; his kindness of heart ; his sympa- 
thies broad enough for all forms of sorrow and mis- 
fortune; his earnest sincerity; his aversion to cant 
and pretence in the quadrangular contest which fol- 
lowed, secured to him his election, where Mr. Seward 
or Governor Chase or Mr. Cameron or Judge Bates 
would have been defeated. His nomination was one 
of the many providences which have contributed to 
the preservation of the republic. 

It would be premature here to advert to the singu- 
lar felicity and power with which Mr. Lincoln ex- 
pressed his ideas. But as a perfect document of its 
kind, as well as a refutation of the wicked charge of 
infidelitj^ which has been made against him, I here 
present his letter accepting this nomination : 



HE ACCEPTS THE NOMINATION. 385 

" I accept the nomination tendered me bj* the con- 
vention. The declaration of principles and senti- 
ments which accompanies your letter meets my ap- 
proval, and it shall be my care not to violate or dis- 
regard it in any part. Imploring the assistance of 
Divine Providence and with due regard to the views 
and feelings of all who were represented in the con- 
vention, to the rights of all the States and Territories 
and people of the nation, to the inviolability of the 
Constitution, and the perpetual union, harmony, and 
prosperity of all, I am most happy to co-operate for 
the practical success of the principles declared by the 
convention." 

Mr. Lincoln preserved his unbroken tranquillity of 
mind from his nomination until his election. His 
position was known ; it required no explanation. He 
was opposed to slavery upon principle ; he believed 
any increase of its power to be detrimental. But it 
had been established in the slave States by law and 
recognized by the Constitution. There it was a 
local institution, with which the Federal Government 
had no concern. He believed in the power and the 
duty of Congress to exclude slavery from the Ter- 
ritories by positive law, and he was ready to co-oper- 
ate with all who were willing to labor to that end. 

He was opposed by Mr. Douglas, the advocate of 
the doctrine of popular sovereignty, or the exclusive 
control by their legislatures of slavery in the Ter- 
ritories ; by Mr. Breckenridge, the candidate of the 
Democrats, who asserted the duty and power of Con- 
gress to protect slavery in the Territories, and by 
Mr. Bell, the candidate of those who had no opinions 
on the subject of slaver}*. He firmly believed in his 
own election, he did nothing to divert the people 
25 



386 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

from his support, and he was not disappointed. He 
received ever} r electoral vote of the free States save 
four in New Jersey cast for Douglas; one hundred 
and eighty in all, or a majority in the electoral college 
of fifty-seven. Mr. Douglas received twelve, Mr. 
Breckenridge seventy-two, and Mr. Bell thirty-nine 
electoral votes. Of the popular vote Mr. Lincoln re- 
ceived 1,857,010; Mr. Douglas, 1,365,976; Brecken- 
ridge, 847,953; and Bell, 590,631. 

Mr. Lincoln was not disturbed by the important 
events which followed his election and preceded his 
inauguration. Nor do I wish now to recall one 
single event in that disgraceful chapter of official 
weakness, of malignity, depravity, and actual treason. 
Mr. Lincoln had no difficulty in the selection of his 
Cabinet. Mr. Seward, Governor Chase, Messrs. 
Cameron, Bates, and Montgomery Blair had been the 
defeated candidates in the Chicago convention. 
They were therefore the principal favorites of his 
party, and their selection as members of his official 
family would secure the party support. One place 
in the Cabinet he would have given to the South ; 
but no one would accept it in whom he could repose 
confidence, and he would not appoint airy man to 
office whom he could not trust. One of the remain- 
ing places went to Indiana in fulfilment of a pledge 
which, unknown to him, his friends in the nominat- 
ing convention had given to the delegates from that 
State, and with which he now rather unwillingly 
complied ; the other to an acquaintance accidentally 
made on his New England lecture tour. 

He had many visitors, who were received with 
perfect cordiality, but learned nothing of his future 
purposes. Toward the end of January, with the as- 



HIS FAREWELL TO SPRINGFIELD. 387 

sistance of a copy of the Federal Constitution and a 
speech made by Henry Clay, he composed his first in- 
augural address, that official paper, for the power, elo- 
quence, and beauty of which I have no words of ade- 
quate commendation, and he was then ready to 
abandon all private and personal interests and devote 
himself wholly and unreservedly to the service of his 
country. 

He paid his last visit to one whom he loved as if 
she had been his own mother. His parting with her 
was the close of his private life. Henceforth he was 
to live for his country. He then prepared to com- 
mence his journey to the capital, where he was to 
enter upon his great official career. 

Historians have written, artists have commem- 
orated, and massive arches and columns have pre- 
served the story of triumphal marches, imperial pro- 
cessions, and royal entries into great capitals; but 
history records no journey like that of the President- 
elect from Springfield to Washington. He had thus 
announced his faith : " I know that there is a God 
who hates slavery and injustice. If he has a place 
and work for me — and I think he has — I am ready ; 
I know that I am right because liberty is right. 
Christ teaches it, and Christ is God." Never was 
farewell more touching than his to his Springfield 
neighbors : " To this people I owe all that I am ; 
here I have lived more than a quarter of a century ; 
here my children were born and here one of them 
lies buried. I go to perform a task more difficult 
than that which devolved upon Washington. Unless 
the great God who sustained him shall be with me 
and aid me, I shall fail. But if the same Omniscient 
Hand and Almighty Arm that directed him shall 



388 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

guide and support me, I shall not fail ; I shall suc- 
ceed. To him I commend you all. I ask that with 
equal faith you shall invoke his wisdom and guid- 
ance for me." 

Then on the 11th of February he began that jour- 
ney the record of which will be read with interest 
in distant centuries. At every city or considerable 
town he said something worthy to be remembered. At 
Tolono he said that the clouds were dark, but the 
sun was shining behind them. At Indianapolis he 
declared that the gates of hell could not prevail 
against a people united to defend their country. At 
Cincinnati, where were many Kentuckians, he told 
them that he must follow the great examples of 
Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, and again re- 
ferring to the great task he had undertaken, he said : 
" I turn then and look to the great American people 
and to God, who has never forsaken them, for sup- 
port." At Steubenville he declared that he should 
enforce the right of the majority to rule, and that if 
his policy was wrong they could turn him out at the 
end of four years. At Pittsburg he referred to the 
distracted condition of the country and announced 
his unswerving fidelity to the Constitution. At 
Cleveland he said that his heart was glad because 
all parties had united in his reception, and added : " If 
we do not unite now to save the good old ship of the 
Union on this voyage, no one will ever pilot her on an- 
other." At Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, Al- 
bany, Troy, Hudson, Poughkeepsie, Peekskill, New 
York Cit} T , Jersey City, and Newark, in various forms 
he repeated his confidence in the loyal people and his 
trust in God to preserve an united republic. At Tren- 
ton he told, out of Weems' life of Washington, the 



ON THE WAY TO WASHINGTON. 389 

story of the depression of the loyal people when Wash- 
ington crossed the Delaware and revived their hopes 
by the victory over the Hessians : a story learned in 
his boyhood. At Philadelphia the mayor had re- 
ferred to the great Declaration and the Constitution, 
which had been made in Independence Hall. Mr. 
Lincoln seemed to be treading the mountain heights 
of eloquence when he replied : " All my political 
warfare has been in favor of the teachings that came 
forth from these sacred walls. May my right hand 
forget its cunning and m} T tongue cleave to the roof 
of my mouth if I ever prove false to those teachings." 
We know now the solemn sincerity of his assertion 
that sooner than give up the promise of liberty to all 
men made by that Declaration he would be assassi- 
nated. He predicted that there would be no bloodshed 
in the near future, unless the necessity was lorced 
upon the Government, and then it would be shed in 
self-defence. Thus he pledged himself to the great 
Declaration and the Constitution, and with the 
solemnity of a prophet of old promised to live, and 
if it were the pleasure of Almighty God to die, by 
their immortal principles. 

Where is there a word-picture more powerful or 
beautiful than that he drew at Harrisburg, the last 
upon this journey? It was the natal day of Wash- 
ington. From Independence Hall with its crowded 
memories his hand had flung the Stars and Stripes to 
the golden rays of the morning sun. He thanked the 
commonwealth for its friendship to him, for its loy- 
alty to the republic. He praised her military, and 
hoped it would never shed fraternal blood. The pic- 
ture was brilliant in an atmosphere of freedom ; there 
was on it no spot of rebellion, no stain of secession. 



390 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

It was worth}' of the time, of the country, and of the 
master-hand of Abraham Lincoln. 

Left to his own inclinations, Mr. Lincoln would 
have left Harrisburg in the morning of February 
23d, and have passed through Baltimore about mid- 
day, where, unless providentially protected, he 
would have fallen by the hand of hired assassins who 
lay in wait for him. He listened to good counsels; 
left Harrisburg about six o'clock in the evening, 
arrived in Philadelphia, crossed the city in a car- 
riage, and entered a sleeping-car for Washington 
about twelve o'clock at night. ^Except a Scotch cap i , j|| 
which he usually wore on the cars at night, he was I ™ 
undisguised. He was accompanied by Mr. Lamon, 
who was to be his marshal. His mind was so com- 
pletely at rest that he fell asleep before the train left 
Baltimore and slept until it arrived at Washington. II 
At the station he was met by Mr. SewarcTand Mr. fM"l 
Washburn, and unannounced, unheralded, almost un- 
attended, Abraham Lincoln entered the capital of the 
republic he was divinely appointed to preserve. 

Washington was a disloyal city. There had been 
weeks when loyal men and women could not walk its 
streets without insult. The horde of soldiers of for- 
tune from Maryland and Virginia, attracted thither 
by the promise of revolution and the hope of plunder, 
and angry because both were postponed, dominated 
the city. The count of the electoral vote on the 1 3th of 
February had brought a delegation of active loyal 
men from the North and West, who defended them- 
selves and for a few days had driven the drunken, 
gambling crew into their dens and holes. But the 
enfeebled administration, the audacity of the trai- 
tors, the lack of any defensive organization for the 



RECEIVES THE PEACE CONFERENCE. 391 

Union, had so emboldened the gang that they had 
again assumed the offensive, and nothing appeared 
to restrain them but the threat of General Scott to 
manure the hills of Arlington with fragments of 
their bodies, blown from his cannon, if they dared to 
lay hands upon loyal men or their property. But the 
insignificance of his force was coming to be known, 
the States were seceding, the rebels growing bolder, 
and on the 23d of February the city was shrouded to 
loyal eyes in gloom and despondency. 

No apartments had been engaged, no preparations 
were made for the reception of the President-elect. 
Accompanied by Mr. Seward and Mr. E. B. Wash- 
burn, he descended from an ordinary carriage at the 
ladies' entrance to Willard's, waited like a common 
traveller in the reception-room until rooms were as- 
signed for his use, and then his friends left him. 
But he was not permitted to enjoy his seclusion. 
Twenty-four hours had not elapsed before the country 
knew that it had elected a President and that his 
name was Abraham Lincoln. 

The discovery was produced by the " Peace Con- 
ference," as it was called, which was then in session 
in the hall of Willard's hotel. That conference had 
made a formal call upon the outgoing President at 
the instance of its delegates from the slave States. 
At the request of the delegates from the free North 
it voted to call upon the incoming President, who 
said he would be happy to receive its members in the 
evening of the day of his arrival. 

In the Conference were influential men from the 
South, who became afterward prominent in the 
councils of secession. Among them were ex-Presi- 
dent Tyler, William C. Rives, James A. Seddon, 



392 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

Geo. M. Davis, General Zollicoffer, and others. These 
gentlemen anticipated a rare evening's entertainment. 
They expected to meet a "rail-splitter," a boor who 
would not open his lips without exposing his ignor- 
ance; a buffoon with a ready stock of vulgar wit; a 
clown whose antics would amuse them and mortify 
the Republicans. As they were successively pre- 
sented they formed a circle about him, and each was 
held there by some inexplicable attraction. They 
saw a tall, powerful man whose grand face over- 
looked them all; whose voice was kindly, who 
greeted every one with dignity and a courteous pro- 
priety of expression which surprised his friends. 
Two or three of them experimented with questions 
which involved a slight contemptuous disrespect. 
Then his stature seemed to grow loftier and there 
was a ring to his voice and a flash from his eyes 
which discouraged a repetition of the experiment. 
Except for these answers his theme was the Consti- 
tution. That instrument was the safeguard of the 
republic. It was a great charter of liberty, framed 
by wise and prudent men, which bound the con- 
science of every citizen. He was about to renew his 
oath to obey and enforce it. It would not be obeyed 
and enforced until all its provisions and the laws 
passed by Congress were enforced in every State and 
Territory of the Union. If he became President the 
Constitution and laws would be so enforced to the 
utmost extent of his power ! 

Three well-defined types of expression were visible 
upon the faces of his auditors as these earnest words 
fell upon their ears. That of the secessionists was 
profound astonishment and disappointment. The 
more able Southerners evinced their regret for 



EFFECT OF HIS ARRIVAL. 393 

having misjudged him; the faces of the Northern 
loyal men were ablaze with a patriotic exultation 
which was almost irrepressible. There were a few 
Southern men whose opinions found expression in the 
declaration by one of them, " If those are your prin- 
ciples, Mr. Lincoln, I am with you to the end !" 

On our way to our apartments after the close of 
the reception, an experienced and very able Southern 
statesman said : " The South is unfortunate ; we have 
been deceived in Mr. Lincoln. We have been told 
and we believed that he was a reckless, ignorant 
man', unfit for the presidency, easily controlled by bad 
men. What I have seen to-night convinces me that 
he is a strong man who will have a strong adminis- 
tration." 

If ten disciplined regiments of infantry had sud- 
denly appeared on Pennsylvania Avenue, marching 
to the War Office to reinforce the few soldiers of Gen- 
eral Scott, they would not have so inspired the hearts 
of loyal men with courage and confidence as did this 
timely, statesmanlike, bold announcement by Abra- 
ham Lincoln of his purpose to enforce, as well as 
obey, the Constitution and the laws. Flashed over 
the wires to the remotest portions of the free States, 
it aroused loyal men out of their despondenc} T and 
thrilled their breasts with a new hope. The Almighty 
had called him to a great work, and the loyal country 
knew that Abraham Lincoln was ready. 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

Abraham Lincoln: The Diplomatist — The 
Military Strategist — The Master op Eng- 
lish Prose — The Statesman — The Great 
President. 

Who shall write the history of the administration 
of our great President? Not one who knew the true- 
hearted man, who was so patient, so apt to teach, so 
gentle to others, that h inspired in one who came in 
contact with him an and} T ing love which could 
not fail to find expre on in his pen. By and by, 
in another century, v\ iJl those who saw his face 
when it did shine i -e sun are no longer to be 
called as his witnes let the man be found who 
is his equal in prose nposition, who is as just as 
Solomon, as wise ai >lon, as great a soldier as 
Wellington, the Tack >f his time; and let him be 
assigned to that duty. will be content if I can de- 
scribe some of the inci .its which made us so honor 
and love Abraham Lincoln. 

From the dome of the Capitol the statue of Liberty?*^, 
looked upon a great spectacle on the bright morning 
of March 4th, 18G1. Prom the Executive Mansion 
to the Capitol gate, the avenue and its buildings on 
either side, from basement to roof; the grounds on 
the Potomac front ; the many seats provided on the 
eastern side, the great square of the Columbus statue, 
and the windows of the Capitol — all the space was oc- 
cupied by American citizens. They were orderly. 

394 



HIS INAUGRATION. 395 

There were a few policemen present — they were in 
citizen's dress. A single field battery, the only one 
in Washington, was so concealed on the street front- 
ing the old Capitol that only the few who were in 
the secret knew that even this slight preparation had 
been made to suppress any attempt at rebellion. 

A small hollow square formed by the engineers of 
the regular army, inclosing an open carriage in which 
rode the aged, enervated, outgoing President, moved 
like a machine from the White House to Willard's 
Hotel. There a tall and stalwart figure, with an 
earnest face and firm step, entered the carriage, and 
the procession moved down the avenue to the Capitol, 
which was entered at the Sen* te door. After a brief 
delay for the exercises in the $ nate chamber, another 
procession was formed and n ;ched to the principal 
eastern exit. First came stalwart figure, arm 

in arm with a senator. Th iierable chief justice 
and associated justices of United States, the 

diplomatic corps in full o i, senators, and high 
officers of the army and nav llowed them. They 
advanced well to the front iere a table had been 
placed. On their right and ' and in front of them, 
in silent expectation, was v largest audience that 
ever witnessed an inauguration. Then, clear as the 
tones of a silver bell, the voice of the most knightly 
man in all the land seemed to fill the invigorating 
air, reaching the most distant auditor, when the gal- 
lant Senator Baker said : " Fellow-citizens, I intro- 
duce to you Abraham Lincoln, the President-elect of 
the United States of America." 

His first inaugural address was then delivered. 
From its opening words to its beautiful closing para- 
graph, the assembled thousands listened with an ex- 



396 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

pectation almost painful in its intensity to every word 
of this remarkable paper. This had been the first 
silent inauguration since the foundation of the Gov- 
ernment. When the President- elect first appeared to 
enter the carriage at his hotel, there was an attempt 
to applaud, but it was not successful. His long ride 
down the avenue, his entrance to the Senate chamber , 
his appearance before his great audience called forth 
almost no applause. His protest that he had no 
purpose to interfere with slavery, his reference to 
the Chicago platform, drew the attention of his audi- 
ence more closely; his statement that he took the 
official oath with no mental reservations raised upon 
many faces a look of hopeful anticipation which grew 
more earnest when he declared his opinion that under 
the Constitution the Union of the States was perpet- 
ual — it was perilously near breaking into sound as he 
enlarged upon this topic— then he paused, and with 
face and hands uplifted, as if he was looking far into 
the unknown future, with a voice in which there was 
no trace of hesitation or uncertainty, he declared his 
own purpose to use the power confided to him by the 
Constitution to hold, occupy, and possess the places 
and property of the United States, and to collect the 
duties and imposts, and then all the barriers of doubt 
were swept away and every loyal breast gave forth 
a shout of thanksgiving which shook the ground and 
rent the air like a psean of victory and freedom sung 
by loyal millions over the irrevocable doom of re- 
bellion. The remaining paragraphs of this remark- 
able paper were heard with increasing evidences of 
loyal approval, and its close was indescribably pa- 
thetic. It was like the concentrated yearnings of a 
mother over a wayward child. 



HIS OATH OF OFFICE. 397 

With his left hand upon the open Bible, his right 
raised toward heaven, the solemn, earnest voice re- 
peated slowly with distinct enunciation, after the 
venerable chief justice, the words of the oath to 
defend the Constitution : " I do solemnly swear that 
I will faithfully execute the office of President of the 
United States and will, to the best of my ability, 
preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the 
United States, so help me God." 

Thus Abraham Lincoln became President of a re- 
public from which seven States had attempted to 
secede, at an hour when it was infested by treason 
and threatened with armed rebellion. The telegraph 
flashed his great inaugural to the remotest corners of 
the country, but it was man} T days before its power 
or the plain declaration of its policy was appreciated. 
The country was not prepared for such a document. 
The more it was studied the more unanswerable it 
was felt to be. It was new in the elegance of its 
composition, but its principles were those which had 
long been advocated by its author. Still there was 
a force in its pointed truths which captivated the 
judgment, although there were some loyal Democrats 
who did not yield to its conclusions until the blow of 
treason fell. 

In the rapid survey of the acts for which President 
Lincoln is to be justly credited or held responsible, to 
which this article is restricted, the reader should 
understand, at the outset and once for all, that for 
about three years in his judgment certain proposi- 
tions had been firmly established and were no longer 
open to argument or question. One of these was 
that the slave power had determined to make slavery 
lawful everywhere within the republic, and nothing 



398 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

would prevent that consummation but the destruction 
of that power. In its success he knew the free 
States would never acquiesce . until they were con- 
quered. He conscientiously believed that slavery 
was a cruel injustice to the slave, a menace of in- 
creasing strength to the republic. By the clear light 
of his matured judgment he saw that for him the 
path of duty was the path of honor ; he must obey 
the Constitution and enforce the laws ; he must re- 
press rebellion and destroy treason. If slavery and 
armed rebellion must both perish in the conflict he 
could not be held responsible at the bar of justice or 
his own conscience, and it would still be true that 
" all they that take the sword shall perish with the 
sword." 

It was most fortunate for himself and for the 
country that Mr. Lincoln had constantly in his mind 
this standard of judgment, which determined for him 
what he should and what he should not do. For he 
had an extremely sensitive conscience and no capacity 
to avoid trouble or escape responsibility. Other 
Presidents had acquiesced in questionable precedents 
on the ground that they were established by depart- 
ment officers who were alone responsible for their 
continued application. He never in such or any 
other case permitted another to perform a duty which 
was imposed upon him by the law. If he had not 
been able by certain and fixed principles to deter- 
mine questions of difficulty, anxiety and care would 
have worn out his life before the close of the second 
year of his term. In our judgment of his acts, then, 
we must never lose sight of his convictions. He 
knew that slavery was aiming at the domination of 
the republic and would fight before it would yield ; 



THE CORNER-STONE OF THE CONFEDERACY. 399 

therefore in Iris mind slavery was doomed to ex- 
tinction. 

His inaugural address was denounced by the dis- 
loyal press as warlike and uncompromising. Seven 
States had formed a confederate government. One 
of its first acts was to dispatch envoys to Washing- 
ton to negotiate for "a peaceful adjustment of the 
questions growing out of their political separation." 
The prompt decision of the President to deny them 
recognition was communicated to the envoys by 
Secretary Seward, on the 15th of March. On the 
21st, Mr. A. H. Stephens, Vice-President of the 
Confederacy, in a speech in Savannah, Ga., fully 
justified the conclusions of President Lincoln by pub- 
licly declaring that the "foundations of our new 
government are laid; its corner-stone rests upon 
the great truth that the negro is not equal to the 
white man; that slavery, subordination to the supe- 
rior race, is his natural and moral condition. This 
our new government is the first in the history of 
the world based upon this great physical, philo- 
sophical, and moral truth." In a later speech Mr. 
Stephens declared that " the South was warring for 
political and social existence ;" that " the most im- 
portant feature in it [the Federal Constitution] was 
the obligation to return fugitive slaves;" that he 
would never surrender this obligation, " though 
every valley from here to the Potomac should run 
with Southern blood and every hill-top be bleached 
with Southern bones." He predicted that "in less 
than three years Lincoln and his Cabinet would 
come to the gallows or the guillotine, as those did who 
led the French to war," and all the people of the 
South shouted "Amen!" The envenomed sugges- 



400 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

tions of the Southern press, to fire into the loyal 
forts brittle cylinders filled with stinging snakes, 
tarantulas, centipedes, and scorpions, might be disre- 
garded as silly, but Mr. Stephens was a statesman 
who spoke for slavery with authority. 

President Lincoln neither predicted results nor at- 
tempted to change the lines of a conflict fixed by powers 
beyond his control. He had said that it was his duty 
to collect the revenues, enforce the laws, and occupy 
and possess the places and property of the Govern- 
ment. To this present duty he gave himself and 
used all the available resources of the country. At 
the head of each department he placed the best man 
he could select and restricted him only by one di- 
rection : to vise all its powers to aid in the work to 
which he was called and had undertaken to execute. 
He prepared to reinforce Fort Sumter. But it was 
too late. The flag of Sumter fell before the trial could 
be made. Then the slave power struck the blow and 
fired the opening gun of rebellious war. Before its 
crime-infected roar had reached all the loyal States, as 
the flag of Sumter fell, the loyal lightning followed 
the sound, calling seventy-five thousand loyal men 
into the field, and the Congress to meet in extraor- 
dinary session. A million would have answered 
" Ready" to the call of Abraham Lincoln. Four days 
later he proclaimed a blockade of the Southern ports, 
and with favoring winds a hundred ships sailed to en- 
force it. High above the din of preparation came 
another call for fortj'-two thousand men to serve as 
infantry or cavalry, for three years or during the 
ivar, for an increase of twenty-three thousand men 
for the regular army, and eighteen thousand seamen 
for the same three years' term. 



LINCOLN EQUAL TO HIS POSITION. 401 

President Lincoln was no autocrat. He had called a 
force sufficient to maintain the status quo. Now it 
was his duty to consult Congress. A great wave of 
loyalty was rolling down from the free North. The 
nations saw the uprising of a great people, such as 
never shook the foundations of the earth before. It 
transcended description. It was more than life to 
live in such a time and to witness it. Lincoln saw 
it, and on the first day when Congress met and could 
affirm his act he answered it by another call for four 
hundred thousand men and four hundred millions 
of money. 

Men born since the war, or, if before, were of those 
who staj^ed at home and resolved that the war was 
a failure, have criticised the President because he 
failed to appreciate the magnitude of the conflict and 
to call for a larger number of men to suppress the re- 
bellion. Those who lived at the time or can intel- 
ligently read its history know better. The county 
had been at peace for almost fifty years (for in such 
gigantic events the brush with feeble Mexico should 
not count). Treason in high places had done its 
worst to exhaust the loyal North and to strengthen 
slavery with Northern resources. In such a country 
at such a time these labors of President Lincoln dur- 
ing the four first months of his administration are 
full proof that he rose above the highest level of his 
duty and earned his title of the great President of a 
free people. 

There was no concealment of the policy of the 
President and his administration. He defined it in 
his letter to Mr. Greeley in August, 1862. "I would 
save the Union," he said; "I would save it in the 
shortest way under the Constitution." Such was 
2G 



402 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

his estimate of his duty. By it he measured every 
act which occurred to himself or was suggested by 
others. Was it right? Would it tend to suppress 
the rebellion and save the Union? If it would, he 
pressed it into instant service Avith all the strength 
he could command. If it would not, arguments in 
its favor made no more impression than if addressed 
to a granite rock. Was the man proposed the man 
who in that place would make it strongest for the 
Union? If yes, he received the appointment, no mat- 
ter if he had spoken contemptuously and was the 
enemy of Abraham Lincoln. If nay, there was not 
influence enough in the nation to secure his appoint- 
ment. 

Aggressive war would tend to save the Union by 
destroying its enemies. Therefore it must be waged. 
But war entailed sorrow, misery, death, which 
wounded his great heart, and therefore no labor or 
sacrifice of his must be spared to diminish its miser- 
ies. This war was to be waged between citizens of 
the same county, brothers almost ; therefore there 
must be no unnecessary ferocity, no vengeance in it, 
and for those who laid down their arms no punish- 
ment, no hard conditions. 

Let us briefly sketch a few of the principal acts 
of his official term and ascertain whether or not they 
conform to this outline of his policy. 

He wept hot tears for the men who fell in the first 
battle of Bull Run, and his heart bled for the wounded 
and the suffering; but he saw in the defeat only a 
necessary discipline by the Almighty of those who 
had exaggerated the strength of the Northern army 
and under-estimated the work it had to do. Not for 
one moment did he lose faith in the result, but he 



THE SURRENDER OF MASON AND SEIDELL. 403 

rose to the full appreciation of the danger and pre- 
pared his country for the new sacrifices it demanded. 

In November, 1861, Captain Wilkes, of the U. S. 
steamer San Jacinto, took Mason and Slidell, the 
Confederate envoys, out of the British mail steamer 
Trent, on the high seas, and permitted her to con- 
tinue her voyage. England demanded and the 
President ordered their surrender. Captain Wilkes 
could only have justified the seizure b} r bringing the 
steamer into port and securing her legal condemna- 
tion. Failing to do this, his act became a trespass 
ab initio, and so incapable of justification. Mr. 
Seward made this point clear by a diplomatic letter 
to Lord Lyons, the British minister, covering many 
pages of manuscript. Mr. Lincoln made it equally 
clear in the compact sentence, " Captain Wilkes had 
no authority to turn his quarter-deck into a court of 
admiralty." 

From the fall of Sumter many strong men con- 
stantly pressed the President to strike the death-blow 
of slavery by a proclamation of emancipation. His 
answer was : " I will do it when it will best promote 
the national cause, and not until it will most help to 
save the Union.'' Early in August, 1862, he had 
substantially decided to issue this proclamation, and 
he again put off the day. Then Mr. Greeley wrote 
his querulous letter almost charging the President 
with cowardice and bad faith. The President replied 
in a remarkable and unanswerable model of official 
dignity, argumentative force, and English composi- 
tion. 

The colored people, who were most interested, did 
not share in Mr. Greeley's impatience. They had 
learned in whatsoever opinion Massa Linkum was, 



404 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

therewith to be content. A colored man brought to 
a Treasury officer in August, 18G2, the news of the 
postponement of the proclamation. His words were 
"Massa Linkum thinks it best to wait until we win 
a victory, so the rebs won't think it is a brutal ful- 
men." "And you colored people must be greatly 
disappointed," said the officer. " Oh, no, sir !" was his 
cheerful, satisfied reply. "O' course Massa Linkum 
knows best when we should be made free." He did 
know best. On the 22d day of September, 1862, 
when the shattered legions of rebellion Avere flee- 
ing from their bloody defeat at Antietam, he issued 
the proclamation. It was no brutum fulmen. The 
loyal people gave him audience unto this word, eman- 
cipation; and they lifted up their voices and said, 
" Away with such a monster from the earth ! It is not 
fit that he should live. " And as they cried out, slavery 
fell by the hand of Abraham Lincoln ! 

It was in this year 1802 that the letters from the 
President to the generals of his armies began to ap- 
pear, which commonly closed with the remark, " This 
is what I think and not an order," but which so ar- 
rested the attention of military authorities. Masters 
of military science, skilled leaders of great armies in 
the field, read those letters now and exclaim : " This 
man was greater than any general then in command ! 
He was a military strategist, the greatest of his time !" 

Notable was his strong common sense which gave 
Fox to the navy and drew Sherman from his retire- 
ment to the command of armies. He restrained pre- 
tentious inexperience and brushed away the absurd 
hostility and contempt of the regular for the volun- 
teer service in the army and navy ; he bestowed the 
Christian and the Sanitary commissions upon the 



HIS PROSE COMPOSITIONS. 405 

armies ; gave the Monitor and armored vessels to the 
navy and improved arms to both branches of the 
service. 

The literary world has had no superior to Abra- 
ham Lincoln in the composition of English prose. 
His farewell to his Springfield neighbors ; his speeches 
at Trenton and at Independence Hall in Philadel- 
phia; the closing paragraph of the first and the 
whole of the second inaugural address ; the speech at 
Gettysburg; his letters to Mrs. Bixby and to Horace 
Greeley will not suffer by comparison with any Eng- 
lish prose which had been theretofore written. A 
competent critic who has written an appreciative 
volume on the English prose of the present century 
properly selects the long letter of August 26th, 1863, 
to James C. Conkling as an unexcelled example of 
English prose. 

I have said that he would appoint the best man for 
a place although he was his enemy. The quality 
which in this respect controlled him has been called 
his magnanimity. He seems to have been incapa- 
ble, in such a case, of taking into account any- 
thing but qualifications for the place. General 
McClellan, who with singular impropriety had as- 
serted that he was divinely appointed to save the 
country and had undertaken to instruct the President 
how to discharge his duties, had not hesitated to make 
imputations against him which were insulting. Yet 
he gave McClellan the command at Antietam, 
against the remonstrances of his Cabinet, because he 
believed that, as matters then stood, McClellan's ap- 
pointment was the best he could make. Mr. Stanton 
in a domineering manner had appropriated a posi- 
tion in an important lawsuit to which Mr. Lincoln 



406 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

was entitled, and he felt the slight keenly at the time. 
He did not remember the incident when he made Mr. 
Stanton the great War Secretary and a member of 
his Cabinet. Mr. Chase had ridiculed his peculiar- 
ities, and resigned without excuse in a manner which 
was almost contemptuous. In the very hour of his 
resignation, when any but a great man would have 
resented the act, he decided to make Mr. Chase 
Chief Justice of the United States. Chase and 
Stanton stood by his dying bed. Sincere, intense 
grief silenced the voice of one; the other exclaimed, 
" There lies the greatest ruler of men the world ever 



saw 



i« 



What man so sensitive, so compassionate, so 
tender, was ever so sorely tried? His children, and 
especially in his later life, were the objects that 
filled up the measure of his domestic life. There was 
something terrible in his speechless, cheerless grief 
when he lost them. His sorrow over Ellsworth, Baker, 
and other near friends found some relief in tears. His 
fear lest some great calamity might fall upon some 
life through his neglect took many hours from the 
rest so necessary to his wearied body . He seldom 
approved the death-sentence of a court-martial, and 
never until he knew all the facts and that the culprit 
deserved to die. " You will destroy the discipline of 
the army if you continue these pardons," remon- 
strated a high officer. " You must get along some 
way, for I cannot help doing it," was his noble, his 
beautiful reply. How speaking was every feature 
of his face when the captain was pleading for the 
sleeping sentinel! how quick his resolution himself 
to go and save him ! How tender that interview, 
when none but God was present, and he talked with 



LINCOLN AS A STATESMAN. 407 

the boy " about his mother, and how she looked and 
how he ought never to cause her a sorrow or a tear," 
and so changed the mountain boy into a hero and 
then gave him his life ! Who can read that letter to 
the Boston mother of five sons, who all " had died 
gloriously on the field of battle for their country " 
— nay, who has ever had one clear, unobstructed view 
of the inner life of Abraham Lincoln, and does not 
know that he was gentle as the beloved disciple and 
that a tenderer heart than his never beat in a human 
bosom? 

That he was a statesman is now proved by almost 
every act of his administration for which he was re- 
sponsible and which bears the impress of his own hand. 
No member of his Cabinet or of either house of 
Congress had at all times a clearer view of the 
situation or of what measures were practicable to 
suppress the rebellion and restore the Union. Surely 
no man had a clearer view than his of the cause of 
the Civil War and of the necessity of removing that 
cause in order to a lasting peace. His position as 
a wise, prudent, far-seeing * statesman stands un- 
questioned in the history of his time. 

He was a diplomatist. He influenced a Cabinet 
composed of able men of pronounced and conflicting- 
opinions to act as a harmonious whole. The great 
powers would willingly have witnessed the fall of 
the republic. But our ship of State had a skilful 
pilot and an able captain. Lord Lyons and Drouyn de 
l'Huys met their equal in Mr. Seward, and Mr. 
Lincoln was never disturbed by the machinations of 
Louis Napoleon or the injudicious threats of Earl 
Russell. 

He was a military strategist. Had his clear and 



408 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

wise suggestions been followed as they should have 
been, the army of General Lee would not have re- 
crossed the Potomac after Antietam nor after Gettys- 
burg. His letter of October 13th, 1862, to General 
McClellan is pronounced by competent military 
critics as a masterpiece, which recognized and dealt 
with every alternative, and which, property executed, 
would have ended the war in that year. His sug- 
gestions to the generals in command were always 
wise and prudent, and remarkable for their grasp of 
all the details of the situation. 

He was a master of English composition. His 
two inaugural messages, his address at Gettysburg, 
and his letter to James C. Conkling of August 26th, 
1863, have placed him at the very head of the Eng- 
lish writers of the nineteenth century. 

He was a great President. Before we conclude 
this brief and inadequate sketch, another of his 
qualities must be considered. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

Abraham Lincoln — The Man Full of Faith 
and Power. 

It remains to speak of the most attractive and al- 
together the grandest quality in the noble character 
of Abraham Lincoln : his simple, constant, undoubt- 
ing Christian faith. To those who are familiar with 
his history or his words, any discussion of this trait 
will seem unnecessary. But there is a necessity for 
it which may as well be dealt with now as at any 
future time. 

Only bold, bad men assert that there is no God — no 
future life. The statement is so shocking that most 
men hesitate to make it. The free-thinkers, as they 
call themselves, compromise with their sensibilities by 
admitting that there is a God, to whom they denj^ 
all useful attributes, and a future life, which they 
say is free from all responsibility. 

Shades of professed belief among these people 
are unimportant. To all intents and purposes they 
are infidels and the world so regards them. They 
believe that they have no souls to be saved, but are 
laid in the grave like sheep. They are, as Paul de- 
clares, of all men most miserable. They love to in- 
sist that those whom the world delights to honor are 
as destitute of faith as themselves. It seems to com- 
fort them to show that others are as miserable as 
themselves. They persist in the claim that Abraham 

409 



410 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

Lincon was an infidel. They know that faith in the 
God of the Bible has been comforting to millions ; 
that it has always made men better as well as happier ; 
that where that belief is not, there are the dark places 
of the earth. They know that men love the memory 
of Lincoln because of his faith in God. Yet they 
would drag him down to their own level', although it 
should distress and shock the w rid. 

Except the proprietors of tb calumny of his dis- 
belief in the Bible and revealec religion, no man has 
sought to stain the mer -y of I ncoln. His revilers 
are few; they can be unted on the fingers of a 
single hand. They ar. ( , infidels of course ; coarse- 
grained men, in whon i animal strongly predomi- 
nates. With a strar oerversity they profess to 
admire the man whil wound his friends and 

cover his name with < . One of them, who is 

harmless because he T ile, is a common scold. 

Others, whose associ 3 admitted out of his 

kindness of heart, ai "V- 1 by the habit of the 
guest who publishes w" Jn the nperfectly gathered at 
the table of his host, wi ^ . membered only for their 
scandals and be forg* n with them ; and an- 
other defies the opinions . f good men and finds great 
satisfaction in the misuse of his intellect by extolling 
infidel writers and (to use his own expression) in 
"pitching into" Moses, our Saviour, and the re- 
ligious faith of our greatest American. 

Abraham Lincoln an infidel? It is time that this 
foul libel, which crawls in dark places like a noisome 
reptile, had the life stamped out of it by the steel-clad 
heel of God's eternal truth. Whether in that furnace 
of affliction through which he passed when pure Ann 
Rutledge died, when his friends feared for his reason, 



HIS CHRISTIAN FAITH. 411 

there were not hours of despondency when he cried 
out, " There is no God ! no future, no justice," I neither 
know nor care. What I do know, what any one 
may know, is that he was afterward clothed and in 
his right mind, and then and ever afterward there 
was no more doubt of his sublime faith in an all- wise, 
omnipotent God and in the Bible than there was 
of his honesty or his I iistence. 

There were men, id some of them still live, to 
whom his own expre , ions of his firm, undoubting 
faith are among thefti dearc nemories of Abraham 
Lincoln. But they would d* ise themselves if they 
should oppose their person- astimony to the hear- 
say brain-dribble of these cidels and their wit- 
nesses. Nor would it he> ? dignified to follow 
the example of Mr. Gr who commenced his 
refutation of a libel by king to the libeller: 
" You lie ! You know yo The witness I shall 
call will be unimpeacha 1 world will accept his 
evidence against all the who have been of all 
men most imsorable \ buchadnezzar did eat 
grass as oxen and his i.- ^ere grown as bird's 
claws. My witness is ^46?' vm Lincoln! Although 
it may involve some repetifr^ n, I shall bring togther 
his own statements of his views of the Deity, Chris- 
tianity, and the Bible. 

On the 11th of February, 1861, Abraham Lincoln 
left his home and private life on his way to the 
capital to undertake a great public trust, under cir- 
cumstances of appalling difficulty. He knew and 
said that the duty was greater than had been imposed 
upon Washington or any man since his time. He 
said : " He [Washington] never could have succeeded 
except for the aid of Divine Providence. I feel that 



412 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

I cannot succeed without the same divine aid which 
sustained him, and on the same Almighty Being I 
place my reliance for support; and I hope you, my 
friends, will all pray that I may receive that divine as- 
sistance without which I cannot succeed, but with 
which success is certain." 

Was Abraham Lincoln a pretender? No traitor, 
copperhead, or infidel ever made that accusation. 
Then he believed in and trusted Almightj r God and in 
the efficacy of the prayers of his neighbors. 

At Cincinnati on the same journey he said : " I 
cannot but turn and look for the support without 
which it will be impossible for me to perform that 
great task. I turn, then, and look to the great 
American people, and to that God who has never 
forsaken them." 

At Albany he said that he still had " confidence 
that the Almighty, the Maker of the Universe, will 
bring us through this as he has through all the other 
difficulties of our counti " 

At Newark, N. J., r 21st of February, he 

said to the mayor : " Witn regard to the great work 
of which you speak, I will say that I bring to it a 
heart filled with love for my country and an honest 
desire to do what is right. I am sure, however, that 
I have not the ability to do anything unaided of God, 
and that without his support and that of this free, 
happy, and intelligent people, no man can succeed 
in doing that, the importance of which we all com- 
prehend." 

In Independence Hall, after a patriotic reference to 
the memories of the place and the statement that he 
would be assassinated sooner than give up the prom- 
ise of liberty to all men comprised in the great 



HIS CHRISTIAN FAITH. 413 

Declaration there signed, he concluded thus : " I have 
said nothing but what I am willing to live by and, if 
it be the pleasure of Almighty God, to die by." 

So much before he became President. But the 
Pickthanks of infidelity will say that these extracts 
do not prove that he had any faith in the Christian 
religion or in organized systems of Christianity. 
The doubting Thomases on that subject may be re- 
ferred to the sentence in his first inaugural address 
in which he said that " intelligence, patriotism, Chris- 
tianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never 
yet forsaken this favored land are still competent to 
adjust in the best way our present difficulty." 

His first message to Congress, on the oth of July, 
1861, after a complete statement of his views of the 
national duty, closes with these words : 

" And having thus chosen our course, without guile 
and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in 
God and go forward without fear and with manly 
hearts." 

His message to the first regular session of Con- 
gress in December closed with this paragraph : 

" The struggle of to-day is not altogether for to- 
day : it is for a vast future also. With a reliance 
on Providence, all the more firm and earnest, let us 
proceed in the great task which events have devolved 
upon us." 

On the 13th of September, 1862, a deputation rep- 
resenting the religious denominations of Chicago 
presented a memorial requesting him to issue the 
proclamation of emancipation at once. To this memo- 
rial he made a very temperate reply, and arguments 
pro and con followed. If he entertained the contempt 
of the infidel for Christian organization and Avork, 



414 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

here was an excellent opportunity to express it. In- 
stead of doing so he said : 

" I have not decided against a proclamation of 
liberty to the slaves, but hold the matter under advise- 
ment. And I can assure you that the subject is on 
my mind, by day and by night, more than any other. 
Whatever shall appear to be God's will, I ivill 
do." 

On the opening day of the year 1S63 he did pro- 
claim liberty throughout all the land unto all the in- 
habitants thereof. And he said : " Upon this act, 
sincerely believed to be an act of of justice ... I 
invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and 
the gracious favor of Almighty God." 

On the 24th of September, 1862, referring to his 
announcement of his purpose to issue the emancipa- 
tion proclamation, he said to his fellow-citizens who 
serenaded him in the Executive Mansion : " What I 
did, I did after a very full deliberation and under a 
very heavy and solemn sense of responsibility. I can 
only trust in God I have made no mistake." 

On the 16th of November, 1862, by an order over 
his own signature, he enjoined upon the officers and 
men of the army and navy " the orderly observance 
of the Sabbath," and added: "The importance for 
man and beast of the prescribed Aveekly rest, the 
sacred rights of Christian soldiers and sailors, a be- 
coming deference to the best sentiments of a Chris- 
tian people and a due regard for the divine will, de- 
mand that Sunda}' labor be reduced to the measure 
of strict necessity. The discipline and character of 
the national forces should not suffer nor the cause 
they defend be imperilled by the profanation of the 
day or name of the Most High." He also adopted 



HIS CHRISTIAN FAITH. 415 

the words of Washington in a similar order issued in 
177G. 

April 10th, 1862, after the bloody battle of Pitts- 
burg Landing, because "it has pleased Almighty 
God to vouchsafe signal victories to the land and 
naval forces, " he recommended to the people of the 
United States, at their next weekly meeting, that 
"they especially acknowledge and render thanks to 
our Heavenly Father for these inestimable blessings ; 
that they implore spiritual consolation in behalf of all 
who have been brought into affliction by the casualties 
and calamities of sedition and civil war, and that 
they reverently invoke the divine guidance for our 
national counsels," to the restoration of harmony and 
peace. 

In December, in his message to the third session 
of the Thirty-seventh Congress, he said : 

" We know how to save the Union. The world 
knows we do know how to save it. In giving free- 
dom to the slave we assure freedom to the free. 
Other means may succeed; this could not, cannot 
fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just; a 
way which, if followed, the world will forever ap- 
plaud and God must forever bless." 

July 4th, 18G3, after Gettysburg, the President 
in a proclamation of six lines announced the great 
success to, the cause of the Union, and "especially 
desires that on this day He whose will, not ours, 
should ever be done, be everywhere remembered and 
reverenced with profoundest gratitude." 

On the 19th of November, dropping from his lips 
like lilies, the entranced world received the golden 
words of the Gettysburg address, and knew that the 
brave men who there gave their lives that the nation 



416 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

might live had " not died in vain ; that this nation 
under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and 
that government of the people, by the people, and for 
the people shall not perish from the earth." 

On July loth, in view of the victories and 
losses and domestic afflictions which had followed 
them, he said it was "meet and right to recognize 
and confess the presence of the Almighty Father and 
the power of his hand." He called on the people, 
" in the form approved by their own consciences, to 
render the homage due to the Divine Majesty for the 
wonderful things he has done in the nation's behalf, 
and invoke the influence of his holy Spirit to sub- 
due the anger which has sustained a needless and 
cruel rebellion; to change the hearts of the insur- 
gents ; to guide the counsels of the Government with 
wisdom adequate to so great an emergency, and to 
lead the whole nation through paths of repentance 
and submission to the divine will back to union and 
fraternal peace." 

On the 3d of October, 1863, Abraham Lincoln, in a 
thanksgiving proclamation, declared that the bounties 
we enjoyed could " not fail to penetrate and soften 
even the heart which is habitually insensible to the 
ever- watchful providence of Almighty God. . . . No 
human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal 
hand worked out these great things. They are the 
gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while 
dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath neverthe- 
less remembered mercy." 

He therefore " set apart a day of thanksgiving and 
prayer to our beneficent Father, who dwelleth in the 
heavens, and recommends to the people that they 
may commend to his tender care the widows, orphans, 



HIS CHRISTIAN FAITH. 417 

mourners, and sufferers, and implore the , Almighty 
Hand to heal the wounds of the nation." 

In the letter to J. C. Conkling of August, 1863, 
justly reproduced by an eminent British authority in 
the world of letters as one of the best specimens of 
English prose of the current century, he said in con- 
clusion : " Let us apply the means, never doubting 
that a just God, in his own good time, will give us 
a rightful result." 

Invited, but being unable to preside over a meeting 
of the Christian Commission in Washington on the 
day it was held, Mr. Lincoln declined in a letter in 
which he said : " I cannot withhold my approval of the 
meeting and its worthy objects. Whatever shall 
be, sincerely and in God's name, devised for the 
good of the soldiers and seamen, can scarcely fail to 
be blessed, and whatever . . . shall strengthen our 
reliance on the Supreme Being for the final triumph 
of the right cannot but be well for us all." 

" The birthday of Washington and the Christian 
Sabbath coinciding this year, and suggesting together 
the highest interests of this life and of that to come, 
is most propitious for the meeting proposed." 

He said : " For their conduct during this war God 
bless the women of America." At the close of the 
bloody week in the Wilderness, on the 9th of May, 
18G4, he said of it: "Enough is known to claim our 
special gratitude to God. While what remains un- 
done demands our prayers to and reliance on him 
(without whom effort is vain), I recommend that all 
patriots do unite in common thanksgiving and pra} T er 
to Almighty God." 

Congress had adopted a resolution for a day of 
fasting and prayer. President Lincoln appointed it 
27 



418 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

on the first Thursday in August. He calls upon all 
who are in the service of the Government and all 
citizens to unite with him " to confess and repent of 
their sins; to implore the compassion and forgiveness 
of the Almighty, that he may enlighten the nation 
to know and to do his will ; that he might quicken 
the consciences of those in rebellion to lay down their 
arms, that peace may be established throughout our 
borders." Mr. Lincoln writes that he "cordially 
concurs with Congress in the penitential and pious 
sentiments expressed in the resolutions, and heartily 
approves the devotional design and purpose thereof." 

On the 3d of September, 1864, the successes of 
Sherman and his army and the other victories called 
forth from Abraham Lincoln another proclamation 
of "devout acknowledgment to the Supreme Being, 
in whose hands are the destinies of nations, of 
thanksgiving for his mercy, and that prayer be 
made for divine protection to our brave soldiers and 
for comfort from the Father of Mercies to the sick, 
the wounded, and the prisoners, and that he will 
continue to uphold the Government." 

The thanksgiving proclamation of October 20th, 
1864, was of a similar tenor. His address on 
November 10th, in answer to a serenade, contained 
that golden sentence, " So long as I have been here I 
have not willingly planted a thorn in any man's 
bosom," and he said : " I am duly grateful, as I trust, 
to Almighty God for having directed my country- 
men to a right conclusion." 

To that Boston mother of " five sons who have died 
gloriously on the field of battle" he wrote among other 
comforting words : " I pray that our Heavenly Father 
may assuage the anguish of your bereavement and 



HIS CHRISTIAN FAITH. 419 

leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and 
lost." 

To Mrs. Gurney, the excellent Quakeress, he wrote : 
" It has been your purpose to strengthen my reliance 
in God. I am much indebted to the good Christian 
people of the country for their constant prayer and 
consolation, and to none of them more than to your- 
self. The purposes of the Almighty are perfect and 
must prevail. We hoped for a termination of this 
terrible war long before this, but God knows best and 
has ruled otherwise. We shall yet acknowledge his 
wisdom and our own errors. Meanwhile we must 
work earnestly. Surely he intends some great good 
to follow this mighty convulsion which no mortal 
could make and no mortal could stay. ... I hope 
still to receive for my country and myself your ear- 
nest prayers to our Father in heaven." 

To the Presbyterians who had presented him with 
resolutions of approval he said : " From the beginning 
I saw that the issues of the great struggle depended 
on the divine interposition and favor. Relying as I 
do upon the Almighty Power, with support which I 
receive from Christian men, I shall not hesitate to 
use all the means at my control to secure the termi- 
nation of the rebellion, and with hope for success." 

To the Methodists he said : " It is no fault in others 
that the Methodist Church sends more soldiers to the 
field, more nurses to the hospitals, and more prayers 
to heaven than any other. God bless the Methodist 
Church. Bless all the churches ; and blessed be God, 
who in this our great trial gives us the churches." 

To the Baptists he said he had " great cause of 
gratitude for the support so unanimously given by 
all the Christian denominations of the country." 



420 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

It only remains to cite two additional evidences 
under his own hand of the faith of Abraham Lincoln. 
One is the second inaugural message, a composition 
so beautiful in itself, so irresistible in its demonstra- 
tion of his Christian faith that it deserves to be en- 
graved upon the memory of every American citizen. 
To quote an extract from it would be to emasculate a 
document in which there is no superfluous word. As 
in the pathetic beauty of its composition this address 
has no superior, so in its faith in the Bible and the 
just providences of God it will stand forever as a per- 
manent witness of the Christian faith of its great 
author. 

Mr. Lincoln has left the world in no doubt about 
his opinion of the Bible. The reason why his 
speeches and writings are so admirable is because of 
the influence of the Bible which pervades them. Here 
is his opinion of the Book of Books, first publicly 
given to the colored men of Baltimore who presented 
him with a copy of one of its best editions : 

" In regard to the great Book, I have only to say 
that it is the best gift which God has ever given to 
man. All the good from the Saviour of the world 
is communicated to us through, this Book. But 
for this Book we could not know right from wrong. 
All those things desirable to man are contained in 
if. 1 return you sincere thanks for this very ele- 
gant copy of this great Book of God which you 
present." 

If Abraham Lincoln had foreseen that in the latter 
times there would be men to give heed to seducing 
spirits and speak lies of his Christian faith, he could 
not have given stronger proof of it than he has in 
these declarations and in his daily life and conversa- 



HIS FAITH IN THE BIBLE. 421 

tion. He has left no point uncovered. He believed 
in an all-powerful, all-wise, merciful God who re- 
wards the good and punishes the wicked ; who hears 
and answers pra} T er ; who is forgiving to the penitent 
and compassionate to the sorrowing; who hates 
slavery and all forms of cruelty ; who no more re- 
sembles the good-for-nothing Deity of Paine and 
Voltaire than the wooden god of the Fiji Islander. 
His creed comprised immortality and a future life of 
conscience and responsibility. He not only accepted 
but he welcomed the Bible as the revelation of God's 
will, and he united with all the thinking men who 
have made frequent use of its inspired pages, in the 
opinion that it is the greatest of all books, " the best 
gift which God has ever given to man. " He esteemed 
it primarily because it revealed " the Saviour of the 
world." His use of the Bible appears in his best 
writings; the second inaugural address shows how 
well he knew it. He was under a constant sense of 
his responsibility to his God ; he favored and assisted 
all forms of Christian organization and work; he 
thanked God for the churches — for all the churches. 
It strengthened him to know that good men and good 
women remembered him in their prayers. On 
one subject his faith amounted to conviction : the 
suppression of the rebellion, the restoration of the 
Unon, were certain because they had been decreed by 
Almighty God. No public man has left on record 
so many and such conclusive proofs of his belief in 
the Bible and in the teachings of the Bible, comprising 
in these teachings all the details common to Christian 
systems and churches. 

His libellers say that Mr. Lincoln never attended 
religious exercises or united with any church. Omis- 



422 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

sion to unite with a church is no evidence of a want 
of Christian faith. The influences are numerous 
which restrain many good men from uniting with 
a church; too numerous to be mentioned here. 
But it would be singular, indeed , if such a man had 
not set the good example to others of attendance on 
some religious services on the Sabbath day when not 
prevented by unavoidable duties. Therefore its 
treasury records will show that from March, 1861, 
when he came to Washington, until the close of his 
life, more than four years afterward, he was a pew- 
holder and a reverent worshipper in the Presbyterian 
church on New York Avenue, between Thirteenth 
and Fourteenth Streets, of which the Rev. P. D. 
Gurley, D. D. , was the pastor. That he was a regular 
attendant there on Sabbath mornings is a fact 
known to a very large congregation of residents of 
and visitors to the capital ; to none better than to the 
writer. Dr. Gurley, his beloved pastor, who had been 
his comforter in many sorrowful hours, was on his 
knees by the President's bedside in audible prayer 
when invisible saints and angels bore his great soul 
to the God in whom he trusted. 

Voltaire and Paine are the standards by which the 
free-thinkers love to compare Mr. Lincoln. It is 
possible that their disciples may discover in some in- 
frequented corner of their writings evidence that 
Voltaire and Paine believed in some kind of im- 
mortality and in a God for which they had but 
little use. But men are the architects of their own 
reputation. These gentlemen have made theirs. 
They have made the world accept them as deists, 
scoffers at religion, contemners of all Christian or- 
ganization and work ; who abhorred churches ; who re- 



OTHER WITNESSES OF HIS FAITH. 423 

jected the Bible and all divine revelation. They are 
supposed to have been infidels of a blind and sense- 
less perversity in refusing belief in anything Chris- 
tian. To compare Abraham Lincoln with such men 
is wicked — as wicked as blasphemy. He was as far 
apart from them as the east is from the west ; as far 
superior to them as the heaven is high above the 
earth. 

Farther proof would be wasted. None but those 
who wish to deceive themselves in the face of his 
words, his acts, and his daily life will believe that 
Mr. Lincoln was a deist, an infidel, or a disciple of 
Paine and Voltaire. If they will not accept his own 
evidence, if they hear not Moses and the prophets, 
neither will they be persuaded though one rose from 
the dead. 

Should it become necessary to resort to the descrip- 
tion of hearsay evidence upon which the charges of 
infidelity are exclusively founded, those who love the 
fame of Lincoln will find themselves compassed about 
with a great cloud of witnesses, who, lest their 
testimony might be lost, have entered it upon a per- 
manent record. Newton Bateman, in 1861 the Super- 
intendent of Public Instruction in Illinois ; Dr. Hol- 
land, Noah Brooks, Schuyler Colfax, General 
Wadsworth, H.C. Deming, of Connecticut, Sojourner 
Truth, and the Rev. Drs. J. C. Thompson, Bellows, 
and Vinton, and a multitude of others have left on 
record material evidence. 

The extract which follows is scarcely an exception 
to my purpose to restrict the evidence of Mr. Lincoln's 
view of Christianity to his own statements. Isaac 
N. Arnold was no stranger to me. He possessed 
some of Mr. Lincoln's best qualities; for example, his 



434 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

kindness of heart and amiabilit}*. No man knew 
Mr. Lincoln more appreciatively than Mr. Arnold. 
He had known him from the time he came to the 
bar; had been many times associated with him as 
counsel, and they had been close friends. Mr. Arnold 
had " wintered and summered." with him and was con- 
sulted by him frequently while he was President. I 
know of no man who enjoyed his confidence more 
thoroughly, who had studied his character more pro- 
foundry, or who could speak more accurately of his 
religious views than Mr. Arnold. Yet I would not 
call him as a witness if he had not furnished the 
proof of his own conclusions. 

Mr. Arnold says of him what his writings prove : 
" He knew the Bible by heart. There was not a 
clergyman to be found so familiar with it as he. 
Scarcely a speech or paper prepared by him but con- 
tains apt allusions and striking illustrations from the 
sacred book." " No more reverent Christian than he 
ever sat in the executive chair, not excepting Wash- 
ington. He was by nature religious ; full of religious 
sentiment. It is not claimed that he was orthodox. 
For creeds and dogmas he cared little. But in the 
great fundamental principles of the Christian religion 
he was a firm believer. Belief in the existence of 
God; in the immortality of the soul; in the Bible as 
the revelation of God to man; in the efficacy and 
duty of prayer ; in reverence toward the Almighty 
and in love and charity to man, was the basis of his 
religion." 

After referring to some of the written proofs of 
Mr. Lincoln's views above cited and his letter to his 
sick father written in January, 1851, Mr. Arnold 
gives the creed of the President in his own words : 



EVIDENCE OF MR. ARNOLD. 425 

" I have never united myself to any church, be- 
cause I found difficulty in giving my assent, without 
mental reservation, to the long and complicated state- 
ments of Christian doctrine which characterize their 
articles of belief and confessions of faith. When 
any church will inscribe over its altar, as its sole 
qualification for membership, the Saviour's condensed 
statement of the substance of both law and gospel 
(the golden rule) , that church shall I join with all 
my heart and soul." 

"When," continues Mr. Arnold, "the unbeliever 
shall convince the people that this man, whose life 
was straightforward, truthful, clear, and honest, was 
a sham and a hypocrite, then, but not before, may 
he make the world doubt his Christianity." 

It is to be regretted that the germs of the false- 
hood of Mr. Lincoln's infidelity cannot be annihilated 
once for all. But it is difficult to destroy such a false- 
hood. Remains of the poison will survive and occa- 
sionally find some diseased brain where they may 
rest, multiply, and create an offensive local suppu- 
ration. But it cannot spread among the American 
people. A public service of his country and al- 
mighty God, guided by the gospels of our Saviour, 
which began in his letter to his sick father in 1851 
and ended with his last proclamation for a national 
thanksgiving, has so enshrined the memory of Lin- 
coln in the hearts of his countrymen that it can 
neither be clouded by falsehood nor defaced by time. 

The attentive reader of the letters, documents, and 
reported speeches of Mr. Lincoln will be impressed 
with the compactness, force, and beauty of his sen- 
tences. Immediately after his death the extreme rarity 
of his autograph notes and letters became noticeable. 



426 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 

Except those of an official character, they are scarcer 
and more difficult to procure than those of any other 
President, not excepting Washington. The finish of 
his prose and the scarcity of his unofficial autographs 
are both evidences of the depth and thoroughness of 
his character. He never spoke from a manuscript, 
yet he never wrote, spoke, or thought extemporane- 
ously. To remove his doubts about a word he solved 
all the problems of Euclid. His mastery of the 
whole subject of slavery was equalled by none of its 
votaries. It was his custom, reclining in a quiet 
room, to repeat the different forms of expressing the 
same idea. It has been said that he wrote the Gettys- 
burg address with a lead-pencil on the cars riding 
to the battle-field. Possibly — and yet it would not 
follow that he had not expended as much time and 
thought over its few lines as Mr. Everett had upon 
his ornate oration. 

Abraham Lincoln was great because he was an 
honest, thorough, faithful Christian man. He was 
the man whom God raised up to save the Union and 
to set before the world a great example. To us who 
were his witnesses, he was a man called and assigned 
to a mighty work, thoroughly conscious that he was 
God's instrument to do that work ; to the last hour 
of the republic he should serve as an example of the 
highest type of the statesman, patriot, citizen, in a 
government of the people. I have written this sketch, 
not as an attempt at his biography, but as a witness 
to the truth and to commend his life to the study of 
my countrymen. 

Was he our greatest American? Was he greater 
than Washington? I do not know. Such inquiries 
do not concern me. What I do know is that they 



WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN. 427 

lived at different times, under different conditions, 
and were endowed with different qualities. They 
were both great men. But they are neither rivals nor 
competitors in American history nor in the Ameri- 
can heart. The noble form, majestic presence, and 
patriotic example of Washington have lost none of 
their force upon the American mind by the lapse of 
one hundred years. The strong face of Lincoln 
grows more beautiful, his rich voice more musical, 
his perfect sentences more powerful as they are seen 
and heard only in our memories. Hand in hand 
and side by side Washington and Lincoln will grow 
in influence and power as they recede into the past. 
One will always be known as the Father, the other 
as the Saviour, of his country ; and so long as patriot- 
ism, integrity, and virtue are honored among men, 
so long shall the memories of both be venerated and 
that of our Lincoln be tenderly loved. 



THE END. 



INDE 



Adirondack fishing days, 148 

Adirondack Woods, Vandalism 
in, 159 ; Importance to water- 
supply of Hudson valley, 160 ; 
Necessity for protection of, 
163 

Albemarle, the ram, Sinking 
of, 311 

Allen, Gen. Ethan, his daugh- 
ter enters a convent, 79 

Allen, Fanny, the beautiful 
American Nun, 83 

Armory, Burning of, in Savan- 
nah, 260 

Armstrong, Jack, his fight 
with Lincoln, 353 

Artist, An American, and his 
Scotch wife, 141 

Auditor, Opinion of a "hold- 
over," 318 

Bar supper, The annual, 205, 
219 

Barn- Burners, The New York, 
12 

Banks, A skilful fraud on Ver- 
mont, 29 ; A way to swindle 
with fraudulent notes, 54 ; 
State effect of National Cur- 
rency Act on, 96 

Bank swindler, How to know 
a, 26 



Bang, a favorite Irish setter, 
178, 181 

Barber, Edward D. , the poet of 
Free Soil, 206 

Barn and other swallows. 111 

Barney, Valentine and Elisha, 
277 

Bear, how I lost one in the 
Adirondacks, 144 

Beckwith, Gen. Amos, Sher- 
man's Quartermaster, 255 

Bench and bar, Early, of Ver- 
mont, 18 

Bennett, Milo L. , a Vermont 
judge, 200 

Bible, Mr. Lincoln's opinion 
of the, 421 

Birds, Notes on, 101, 106 

Blair, Francis P., letter on 
Lincoln's death, 243 

Book chase, The, 279 

Book thieves, their work, 295 

Book-account, Action of, 209 

Boom case, The, 330 

Bradley, William C., Mr. Van 
Buren's opinion of, 15 

Bramble, Hiram, his wife and 
his trials. 170, 174, 176 

British captain, A disap- 
pointed, 254 

Bronx River, its diminution, 
166 



429 



430 



INDEX. 



Bryant, W. C. , on Diminution 

of Streams, 1P7 
Bucking the tiger in Nevada, 

135 
Buffalo Convention, 1848, Call 

for, 16 
Buhvagga Bay, Duck-shooting 

in, 182 
Burlington, her misfortunes, 

201 



Cabinet officers, Lincoln's rea- 
son for their selection, 386 

Cartier, Jacques, his men cured 
of scurvy by an Indian, 196 

Case, A celebrated, 200 

Catholicism, Fanny Allen's 
conversion to, 88 

Chase, Secretary, his policy, 90 

Champlain, Autumn on, 169; 
Game on, 185 

China, "La Chine," supposed 
to be by Cartier's men, 196 

Chipman, George, a side judge 
and a gentleman, 206 

Chipman, Daniel, an early Ver- 
mont lawyer, 22 

Client, A grateful, 53 

Circumstantial evidence, Dan- 
gers of, 330 

Cold River and its trout in 
1846, 148 

Collamer, Hon. J., assists in 
Bank Act, 98 

College graduate, A, mining 
in Nevada, 129 

Colored people following Sher- 
man's army, 267 

Colored pilot on the Savannah 
River, 204 



Comanche Indians, how best 
disposed of, 118 

Contempt of court goes unpun- 
ished, 214 

Contrast, The, the first Ameri- 
can play, 287 

Crow family, The, habits of, 
102 

dishing, Lieut. , sinks the.4Z6e- 
marle, 311 

Cooper Institute speech, Lin- 
coln's, 381 

Conkling, J. C. , Lincoln's let- 
ter to, 405 



Dams on Adirondack rivers, 
their injury, 163 

Deer, Floating for, 141 

Democratic Convention in Ver- 
mont in 1848, 4 

Dialects, Canuck -French and 
Yankee, 169 

Douglas, debate with Lincoln, 
374 

Duck-shooting in East Creek, 
175 

Dunderberg, The ram, sold to 
Russia, 313 



Eagle, The white-headed, a 
robber, 225 

East Creek, Duck-shooting in, 
175 

Emancipation Proclamation, 
The, 403 

Engineering taught by swal- 
lows, 113 

Essex Junction, its miseries, 
202 



INDEX. 



431 



Faro, A game of, and its re- 
sults, 136 

Fires, Forest, and their inju- 
ries, 163 

Fisher, Fort, Second attack on, 
249 

Flood wood, The Vermont, 47 

Forests destroyed for charcoal, 
160 

Fox, Capt. G. V., his charac- 
ter, 107 

Free Soil Party, Origin of, 1 

Free Soil Courier, Publication 
of, 9 



Gambler, A Western, 126 

Geary, General, his division 
in Savannah, 132 

Goesbriand, Bishop, of Ver- 
mont, his cathedral, 81, 89 

Greaser, a Mexican, A chase 
for, 117 

Greenbacks, their first issue, 
95 

Green Kiver Station, a tender- 
foot, 116 

Greeley, Horace, The Presi- 
dent's letter to, 404 

Grizzly Gulch under Lynch 
law, 132 

Gurowski, Adam, his notes, 320 

Gurley, Rev. P. D. , Lincoln's 
pastor, 420 

Hall, Mr. and Mrs. , their spir- 
itualism, 70 

Harrington, Theophilus.on title 
to a slave, 21 

Hatteras Inlet, Fishing in, 263 



Haynes, Rev. Lemuel, a col- 
ored minister, 335 

Hog Island, Teaching school 
on, 269-273 

Hough, Prof. John, his criti- 
cism, 285 

Hudson River, its diminution 
from forest destruction, 165 

Hypnotism, Experiences in, 70 

Indian medical remedies, 196 
Inaugural address, Lincoln's, 

396 
Italy, Destruction of forests 

in, 166 

Judges, Early Vermont, 19 
Judges, Wooden side, 44 

Keyes, Elias, Anecdote of, 20 

Law, a progressive science, 328 

Law and order at a discount in 
a mining country, 130 

Lecompton fraud, 372 

Lincoln , Abraham , Notes on the 
day of his death, 236 ; Effect 
of his death in New York, 
242 ; Blair, F. P. , letter on, 
243 ; Clears a steamer for Sa- 
vannah, 247 ; How he rein- 
forced Grant, 315 ; A wood- 
chopper, 316 ; His origin and 
early life, 340; His ancestors, 
344 ; His books, 347 ; His fail- 
ures, 349 ; Was he a rail-split 
ter? 350; His fight with 
Armstrong, 353 ; His success 
as a lawyer, 356 ; Defends 



432 



INDEX. 



young Armstrong, 358 ; His 
popularity, 365 ; A popular 
speaker, 367 ; His letter to 
Joshua Speed, 370; His study 
of slavery, 377 ; Opposes Le- 
compton fraud, 372 ; His " Di- 
vided House" speech, 375 ; His 
debate with Douglas, 374 ; His 
reply to Douglas in Chicago, 
375 ; His speeches in Ohio in 
1859, 379 ; Speeches in Kan- 
sas and in Cooper Institute, 
New York, 881 ; Nominated 
for the Presidency, 383 ; His 
election, 356 ; His first inau- 
gural, 387 ; Farewell to 
Springfield, 388 ; Arrives in 
Washington, 390 ; Receives 
the Peace Conference, 391 -J 
Delivers his first inaugural, 
395 ; Takes the oath of office, 
397; His pardons, 406; His 
prose composition, 406 ; His 
Christian faith, 409 ; His 
opinion of the Bible, 421 ; 
His attendance at Dr. Gur- 
ley's church, 421 
Lindenwald, A day at, in 1848, 

14 
Loug Lake in 1846, 139 
Lynch law, An execution by, 
123 



McCook family, The fighting, 

306 
Maeck, Jacob, attorney, 199 
Magazines, Early, in Vermont, 

284 
Malaria in Tuscany which 

swallows avoid, 166 



Medicine, the " Ecolectic " 

school, 191 
Militia Act of the Third House, 

49 
Minister and his boys in the 

forest, 140 
Miracle, A Vermont, 81 
Monte, A game of, 128 
Moosalamoo Bank charter, 37 
Moose Creek, Floating for 

deer in, 145 
M o s b y " can ' t have them 

bosses," 325 
Murder in a mining-camp, 126 ; 

Statistics of, 137 
Murderer, Swift punishment 

of a, 136 

Needham, Horatio, 206 

New England, Diminution of 

rivers in, 160 
New York, ill-treatment of 

Croton water-shed, 168 
Niles, Nathaniel, his Sapphic 

ode, 287 

Official influence, Value of, 231 
Omaha railroad station, An 

incident in, 114 
Osborne, W., Murder of, 128 
Ospreys and their habits, 223 
Otter Creek, Little, incidents, 

169 
Owls and thei* - peculiarities, 

221 

Pacific Railroad travel, Early, 

114 
Pamphlets, their short lives, 

289 



INDEX. 



433 



Partridge, common name of 
ruffed grouse, 105 

Peace Conference calls on 
President Lincoln, 392 

Phelps, Hon. Samuel S., Mr. 
Webster's opinion of, 18 

Phelps, Edward J. , a Vermont 
lawyer, 80 

Pierpont Brothers, Robert and 
John, 18, 206 

Pigeon, The passenger, its dis- 
appearance, 107 

Pitkin, Perley P., a Vermont 
quartermaster, 323 

Pliny, Medical remedies of, 194 

Porpoises, how do they com- 
municate? 264 

Presents to Treasury officers, 228 

Privilege, The quack's, 190 

Profits of office, 234 

Prout, John, who "made all 
the noise, " 206 

Quack, A typical, 189 
Quacks and quackexy, 186 

Railroad engineering taught by 

birds, 113 
Ramon, Jesus, a Mexican 

Greaser, 117 
Railroads, Early, in Vermont, 

198 
Robinson, Rowland, his books, 

169 
Rushlow, Captain, one of my 

scholars, 278 

Sabattis, Mitchell, Adirondack 
guide, 141, 146, 156 
38 



"Sanders' Indian Wars," its 
rarity, 282 

Savannah in winter and in war, 
246, 260 

" Scrap " in a Nevada faro 
game, 135 

Scientific navigation by a coast- 
ing captain, 251 

School -teaching on Hog Island, 
272 

Seymour, "Squire" Horatio, 
father of the bar, 206 

Sherman and his army in Sa- 
vannah, 259 

Slavery, changes in its policy, 
376 ; The corner-stone of the 
Confederacy, 399 

Smalley family, The, 329 

Snipe, English, their habits, 
180, 196 

Speed, Joshua, Lincoln's letter 
to, 370 

Spinner, Francis E. , his char- 
acter, 317 

Spiritualism and its mediums, 
70 

Spooner, Judah Paddock, first 
Vermont printer, 287 

Stage held up by robbers, 132 

Stanley, Marcus Cicero, detec- 
tive, 55 

Stolen drawings of old masters, 
296 

Suffolk Bank and its president, 
27 

Swallows, their habits, 109 

Switzerland, Destruction of 
forests in, 166 

Swanton, Teaching school in, 
276 



434 



INDEX. 



Teal, blue -winged and green - 
winged, Flight of, 175 

Telegraphic message, A pecu- 
liar, 114, 120 

Third House, The, in Vermont, 
33, 49, 51 

Thompson, John, organizes 
First National Bank, 99 

" Ti" Creek, Shooting in, 181 

Tiger, Bucking the, in Nevada, 
135 

Tilden, Samuel J., a Barn- 
Burner, 15 

Treasury, U. S. , condition in 
1861, 90 ; Experiences in, 228 

Trent case, The, 403 

Tunnel, A new railroad, 103 

Tuscany, Destruction of for- 
ests in, 166 

Tyler, Royal, author of "The 
Contrast, "287 

Unique books do not exist, 
292 



Unlicensed sale of liquors, 211 
Valentine, Basil, his last will, 

194 
Van Buren, Martin and John, 

11 
Vermont, Early bench and bar 

of, 18 
Vernon, Mount, Washington's 

plan of, 294 

Wade, Ben, opposes Lincoln's 

renomiuation, 314 
Wadsworth, Gen. James S. , 

303, 322 
Washington in March. 1861, 

390 
Washington, George, sale of his 

books, etc., 290, 293, 341 
Wetherby, Alonzo, an Adiron- 
dack guide, 141 
Wilson, Thomas B. , Story of, 

54, 67 
Yale graduate, a miner and 

judge in Nevada, 130, 136 



3U77-2 






